


Bad Moon Rising.

by steeleye



Series: It's Grim Up North. [16]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, First Men in the Moon (Movie)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Comody, F/F, cross over fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-02
Updated: 2017-06-12
Packaged: 2018-11-08 01:27:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 28,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11071185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steeleye/pseuds/steeleye
Summary: 'A Grim Up North' story. Mad scientists and Moon-creatures; a weekend break away from the hellmouth for Willow and Kennedy turns out very much as you’d expect…pretty grim.





	1. Chapter 1

Bad Moon Rising.

By Steeleye.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer or ‘First Men in the Moon’, I write these stories for fun not profit.

 **Crossover:** ‘First Men in the Moon’ is a 1964 British science fiction film directed by Nathan Juran and is an adaptation by the noted science-fiction scriptwriter Nigel Kneale of the H G Wells novel 'The First Men in the Moon'.

 **Spelling, Punctuation, and Grammar:** Written in glorious English-English which is different to American-English.

 **Timeline:** BtVS Post S7 no comics.

 **Words:** Eleven chapters of 2500+ words.

 **Warnings:** 'Friendly fire' isn't.

 **Summary:** 'A Grim Up North' story. Mad scientists and Moon-creatures; a weekend break away from the hellmouth for Willow and Kennedy turns out very much as you’d expect…pretty grim.

0=0=0=0

_I see the bad moon arising.  
I see trouble on the way.   
I see earthquakes and lightnin'.   
I see bad times today.   
Don't go around tonight,   
Well, it's bound to take your life,   
There's a bad moon on the rise.*_

*:Bad Moon Rising; John C. Fogerty.

**Rose Cottage, Dymchurch, England, early June, 2006.**

“Can I open my eyes _now_?” Willow asked as she held her hands over her eyes.

Sitting in the passenger seat of Kennedy’s candy-red sports car Willow wondered what her girlfriend’s ‘surprise’ was going to be. Whatever it was it’d involved starting out from Middlesbrough in Cleveland, where they lived, and driving south. They’d stopped overnight in London at the flat in Mayfair that Kennedy’s father owned, before heading for the south coast. They’d had a leisurely drive through Kent and they’d even taken the time to stop so Kennedy could show Willow where she’d gone to school.

They’d also stopped for a rather good lunch at a pub near the primary school where Kennedy had helped out (for extra credit) when she’d been a teenage schoolgirl. After lunch they got back into the car and headed on towards the coast again. It was now almost five o’clock and they were passing through farmland and apple orchards a few miles inland from the sea.

“Couple more minutes,” Kennedy replied as she drove the car along the narrow country lanes.

Having turned off the main road, Kennedy was now driving them down a narrow lane that had once been the tow path for the canal to their left. To one side of the track was a high, thick hedge on the other was the canal, dark and deep. Having slowed down to a mere ten miles an hour, Kennedy hunched over the wheel as she kept a sharp lookout for both the cottage and any farmer’s tractors that might be heading towards her.

“This better be worth the wait,” Willow said in a low voice, “I’m feeling very silly sitting here with my hands over my eyes.”

“Don’t worry,” Kennedy reassured her, “just a couple more minutes…”

Yes, there it was, Kennedy sighed with relief; the cottage was everything the letting agent had said it would be, at least on the outside. On the left of the lane next to the canal was a small hard standing for people renting the cottage to park their cars, Kennedy drove onto it and brought the car to a halt.

“Are we there yet?” Willow asked hopefully; Kennedy had been particularly tight lipped about what this ‘surprise’ was going to be and quite frankly Willow was more than a little excited to see what it was.

“Just a few more seconds!” Kennedy jumped eagerly out of the car and ran around to Willow’s side and opened the door, “Keep your eyes shut, no peeking.” Kennedy helped Willow out of the car and turned her so the first thing she saw when she opened her eyes would be the cottage. “There,” Kennedy stood back, “open your eyes…now!”

Opening her eyes Willow stared in wonder at the cottage. Okay, it wasn’t a ‘cottage’ in the traditional sense of the word. It was in fact a two story brick built house but it did have roses around the door and rose bushes in its neat little garden, there was even a cherry tree. There were window boxes with flowers and white painted woodwork to contrast the red-brown of the brick work. It stood on the other side of the canal from where they were parked and it looked as if the only way to get to it was by crossing the lock-gates that separated this part of the canal from the part that eventually led down to Hythe a few miles away.

“Do you like it?” Kennedy asked hopefully.

“Like it?” Willow turned to look at her girlfriend, “I love it!” Willow threw her arms around Kennedy’s neck and kissed her passionately, just then a thought intruded into her happiness and she pulled reluctantly away from Kennedy’s lips, “You didn’t buy it, did you? Coz you know you don’t have to try and buy my love…”

“No I didn’t buy it,” Kennedy laughed; the truth was she had thought about it but had eventually decided against it, “we have to give it back on Monday morning.”

“Oh that’s okay then,” Willow grinned before going back to kissing Kennedy; after a few more moments she pulled away again, “You know all that stuff I said about ‘buying my love’ you know that was just the guilt talking, don’t you? I mean I’ve no objection to my rich girlfriend buying me stuff whenever she feels like it.”

“You’ve got a rich girlfriend?” Kennedy replied deadpan, “Who is she? I’ll slay the bitch!” Looking deeply into Willow eyes Kennedy rested her hands on Willow’s hips, “You really like it?”

“Yes,” Willow replied breathlessly.

“Cool, you wait 'til you see inside,” taking Willow by the hand she led her across the lock-gates.

At some point in the last few years someone had replaced the walkway along the top of the lock-gates. The new walkway was almost a yard wide and had sturdy metal handrails on both sides; Willow didn’t get the feeling she was going to fall into the canal which was only a few inches below her feet on one side, or, into the lock itself where the surface of the water was a good twelve feet below her.

“Hey, we don’t have to open these gates to let boats through, do we?” Willow asked as she stepped down into the little garden in front of the house.

“No,” Kennedy stopped next to the front door as she took the keys from the pocket of her jeans, “the canal more or less stops here, the section towards the sea hasn’t been rebuilt yet.” 

Opening the door, Kennedy stood back and gestured for Willow to precede her into the house. Whatever she’d been expecting, Willow still gasped with delight as she stood just inside the doorway and looked around the big room which took up most of the ground floor. It was all polished wood and brass with pictures of hunting scenes on the walls. The furniture looked old and comfortable and there was a huge fire place at one end of the room.

“There’s a kitchen through there,” Kennedy pointed to an open door opposite the fireplace, “and there’s a back door that leads out to an orchard. The stairs are over there,” she pointed to another door about halfway along the wall of the main room, “Two bedrooms and a bathroom and you’ve gotta see the beds!”

“Beds?” Willow asked hopefully as she headed rapidly for the stairs, “Let me see!”

Running after Willow as she dashed towards the stairs, Kennedy laughed like a little girl she was so relieved that Willow had liked her surprise. Making a hell of a racket as they ran along the wooden floored corridor upstairs, Willow was the first to burst into the master bedroom, she stopped stock still in the doorway.

“Wow!” she said slowly before turning to Kennedy and asking, “Is it real?”

“Oh yeah,” Kennedy nodded and smiled to see the happiness in Willow’s eyes, “no cheap, modern, knock-offs for my girl.”

“Wow,” Willow repeated, “a real four poster bed,” Willow had a ‘thing’ for four poster beds, “with curtains and everything!”

Running towards the bed she took a flying leap and landed in the middle of the mattress.

“OH GODDESS!” she cried, “This is just so totally comfortable I don’t think I’ll be getting out of bed at all this weekend!” she looked up at Kennedy, “You’ll have to bring me all my meals up here.”

Standing in the doorway Kennedy crossed her arms over her chest and regarded her witch.

“So you won’t want to join me in any of the activities I’ve got planned?” Kennedy asked slowly.

“Activities?” Willow sat up, “You’ve planned activities…what activities?”

“Well, actually they mostly involve having sex in unusual places,” Kennedy admitted, “but there’s some pretty places to go to ‘round here…”

“Like what?” Willow asked unconvinced, she still wanted to stay in bed all weekend.

“Like,” Kennedy grinned impishly, “there’s a nuclear power station just down the coast…”

“WHAT!?” Willow shrieked as she jumped off the bed as if it was on fire.

“Don’t worry its quite safe,” Kennedy turned and started to head back down the corridor, “and now I’ve got you off the bed you can help me bring all the stuff in from the car.”

0=0=0=0

It didn’t take long to unload the car as it didn’t have much space for luggage, a couple of suitcases each and a box of supplies had filled it almost to the point where Kennedy had had to exert some slayer strength to get the hood closed. Having taken the luggage upstairs to the bedroom neither young woman had been able to resist the call of that big four poster bed. After a bout of lovemaking that had tested the bed’s structural integrity to its limits they’d reluctantly got up, showered, made love in the shower before showering again and getting dressed.

“Hardly seems worth it,” Willow observed as she put on a dress and looked out the bedroom window, “hey, what’s that house?”

“Which house?” Kennedy walked over to stand next to her; the letting agent had told her the cottage wasn’t overlooked by any of the nearby houses.

“There,” Willow pointed to a Victorian copy of an Elizabethan manor house behind some trees and across a meadow.

“Oh that,” Kennedy shrugged as she remembered what the agent had told her, “It belongs to some ‘mad’ scientist guy…he won’t bother us.”

“Mad?” Willow asked suspiciously.

“Mad in a funny, comic book way,” Kennedy reassured her, “not in a world domination way.”

“Oh that’s okay then,” Willow allowed.

“Okay, now we’ve got that sorted out,” Kennedy began, “why don’t you go down to the kitchen and cook super while I unpack our stuff and tidy-up here?”

“Cool,” Willow kissed Kennedy’s cheek before heading on down to the kitchen, of the two of them she was the better cook, while Kennedy was infinitely more organised.

0=0=0=0

“We’ll need to go food shopping tomorrow,” Kennedy said as she sat down at the kitchen table, “not too much just some breakfast stuff, I wasn’t planning on you cooking all weekend, this is a holiday for both of us.”

“No,” Willow dipped her spoon into her soup, “I don’t mind…”

“No,” Kennedy shook her head, “we’re here to rest…”

“But I don’t mind…” Willow began to reply but was cut off by Kennedy.

“No, Willow, we’ve both been working too hard and I’ve been off doing stuff for my dad…” there was a short pause at the mention of Kennedy’s father.

Although she didn’t ask, Willow could make a good guess at the sort of work that Kennedy did for her father. After all Mr Tony Scapone was the head of a Mafia family and Kennedy was his daughter who just happened to have all these super-sneaky combat skills. It didn’t take a genius to work out what Kennedy did when her father asked her to go and _do_ something…or someone, for him.

However, like Buffy, Willow pretended that nothing was going on that was out of the ordinary. After all she loved Kennedy and hadn’t Kennedy’s father helped out when the Slayer Organisation was down to its last couple of month’s worth of money? Had he ever asked for anything in return? No he hadn’t, but Willow had a horrible feeling that one day he would. Rumour had it that Tony Scapone had been able to bribe the old council with a mixture of money and threatened violence to ensure preferential treatment for his daughter…but that was just a rumour, right?

“…and,” Kennedy continued barely missing a beat, “I feel like we’ve been growing apart…”

“No honey…” Willow reached across the table and took hold of Kennedy’s hand, “…it’s…”

It was then she realised, Kennedy was right, they had been growing apart and it was all down to their work. The last couple of emergencies, Kennedy had been away on missions for the ‘Organisation’ or her father. Willow had had to deal with things by herself. Kennedy was her kite string who kept her grounded and prevented her from going too far with the magics. There’d been once or twice over the last couple of years when if it hadn’t been for Kennedy’s presence she would have gone all black haired and destroy the worldy again.

“Yeah,” Kennedy nodded as she ripped a bread roll apart with strong fingers, “you know I’m right and whatever happened to you wanting children?”

“Oh yeah that,” not long after Buffy had got out of prison Willow had asked Kennedy how she felt about babies, “I’d sorta forgotten about that.”

“Yeah and I was sorta looking forward to it,” Kennedy admitted, “as long as it wasn’t me having the babies…you know I’ll happily pay for the IVF treatments.”

“Oh god, Kennie,” Willow gasped, “we’re becoming our work!”

“Yeah,” Kennedy nodded her head firmly, “and if we’re still alive in twenty years time we’ll find ourselves with our lives having past us by…two old women living with a houseful of cats!”

“Hey we won’t be _that_ old,” Willow pointed out, the picture that Kennedy was painting worried her, “but what can we do?”

“Move,” Kennedy replied simply, “move away from Buffy and the hellmouth and everything, if we don’t its going to kill us both or destroy our relationship.”

“But…” Willow began only to be cut off by Kennedy again.

“I know what you’re going to say,” the younger woman pointed out, “what about all the evil?”

“Yeah something like that,” Willow agreed quietly.

“Look we can still fight the evil without living on top of it…” Kennedy explained, “…we need our own space, Will.”

“That’s why you brought me here isn’t it?” Willow asked levelly.

“Its part of it,” Kennedy admitted, “to show you what life could be like,” she smiled hopefully across the table, “wouldn’t you like to be ‘Willow the village witch’ instead of Willow the Red or White or whatever?”

Opening her mouth to speak, Willow closed it again, Kennedy had a point; each day that passed Willow felt herself being a little less Willow Rosenberg and a little more Willow the Mega-witch; hadn’t she complained to Buffy about just this very thing?

“We need to think about this, Kennie,” Willow looked down at her soup, it had gone cold while they’d talked.

“But not for too long, right?” Kennedy pleaded.

“Right,” Willow agreed.

0=0=0=0

**The Manor**

Looking out of one of his upstairs windows, Professor Cavor saw a light on in Rose Cottage and gasped in surprise.

“This will not do!” he told himself urgently, “It’ll ruin everything.”

He was already halfway down the stairs and heading for the front door before he realised that getting the people out of Rose Cottage at this time of night would be problematical to say the least. He’d have to wait until tomorrow morning when he took his regular morning bike ride. He could go by way of Rose Cottage and convince whoever was there to leave right away.

0=0=0=0


	2. Chapter 2

2.

**Rose Cottage, the following day.**

After breakfast the next morning, Kennedy drove into Hythe to do some food shopping leaving Willow at the cottage. Willow had let Kennedy go into the local town by herself because she wanted to think about what her girlfriend had said the previous evening. Tidying up the kitchen, Willow found herself wondering if there was more to life than just ‘fighting the good fight’.

Yes, Buffy was still her best friend (nothing would ever change that) but was Buffy taking her for granted? Okay, yes, Buffy never asked her to do the really big spells unless it was vitally important but then she’d ask her to magic open a jar of jelly (or jam as they called it in England) that was resisting even slayer strength. Of course there’d been that business with the American spies; Buffy had wanted her to magic the truth out of them.

And then there was the thing about the baby; Willow had asked Kennedy how she felt about having children (not Kennedy but herself). Surprisingly Kennedy wasn’t entirely against the idea, but… Like so many other things, it got forgotten in the panic of the next crisis and nothing was ever done. Plus Willow felt uneasy about bringing up a child or children on a hellmouth.

Wandering out into the garden, Willow couldn’t help but feel that life away from the hellmouth would be a lot more peaceful. Sure she’d still be there to help out, but not living on top of the hellmouth would probably mean she wouldn’t have to be so careful about the magic she used.

Sighing and not really knowing what to do for the best, Willow reached out and touched one of the roses. Its petals felt like velvet under her fingers and it still had the early morning dew on it. Looking at the flower Willow remembered the spell she’d tried to do with Tara. They’d floated the rose together fine, but when they’d tried to strip the petals from it everything had gone wrong. Thoughts of Tara made her think of how she’d died, shot dead in front of her very eyes. Sniffing back a tear, Willow looked out over the canal, she saw the clouds reflected in the mirror-like water; she saw the swans and ducks swimming serenely by. The Hellmouth had killed one girlfriend; she couldn’t bear it if it was the cause of Kennedy’s death too.

The sound of a bicycle bell intruded into Willow’s thoughts and made her look up. Coming towards her along the tow path was a man on a bicycle. He was maybe Giles’ age; had receding grey hair and he wore a light grey tweed suit.

“I say, good morning,” the man called as he stopped and got off his bicycle, he leaned his machine against the lock-gate, “do you mind if I come over?” He gestured to walkway on top of the lock gate.

“Sure, why not?” Willow shrugged; perhaps some company would drive all her dark thoughts away.

“I’m Professor Cavor,” the man introduced himself after crossing the lock-gate.

“Willow Rosenberg,” Willow replied as she shook the professor’s hand.

“American?” Cavor looked Willow up and down for a moment, she appeared to be a nice enough young woman; but you couldn’t be too careful, there were people out there who’d stop at nothing to steal his secrets.

“Yes that’s right,” Willow smiled, “but I’ve been living up in Cleveland for the last three or four years.

“Cleveland, eh?” Cavor asked.

“Middlesbrough actually,” Willow confirmed, “my partner and I have a house up there.”

“Ah!” Cavor smiled still unsure whether this pretty redhead was all she appeared to be, “then you don’t own Rose Cottage.”

“No my girlfriend rented it for the weekend,” Willow replied.

“Girlfriend?” Cavor eyed Willow for a moment before the penny dropped, “Oh! Girlfriend…I see…erm…” Cavor didn’t know what to say for a moment; he looked up at the cottage and changed the subject, “Delightful little place isn’t it, I’ve known it since I was a boy,” he pointed vaguely over his left shoulder, “I live at the ‘Big-House’ across the fields there.”

“Yes we saw it from the upstairs window last night,” Willow smiled, he seemed a nice enough guy and a little like Giles in his mannerisms. “Would you like to come in for a cup of tea?”

“Tea?” Cavor wondered if this offer of tea was all part of a cunningly conceived plan to steal the plans for his engines.

It wouldn’t be beyond his competitors to send two young women to distract him while they stole his secrets.

“Yes, I was just about to make some,” Willow gestured towards the front door, “come in why don’t you? Kennedy will be back soon I’m sure she’d be interested to meet you.”

“Kennedy?” Cavor asked.

“My girlfriend,” Willow explained.

Hesitating for just a moment Cavor made up his mind, the people who were out to steal his life’s work were unlikely to have sent a couple of lesbians to seduce him and steal his secrets.

“Oh that will be nice,” Cavor smiled and followed Willow into the house.

“So you’re a professor,” Willow asked over her shoulder as she headed towards the kitchen, “what're you a professor of?”

“Oh this and that,” Cavor replied evasively; watching as Willow went into the kitchen, he quickly looked around for anything that might tell him who this woman and her unseen partner really were, “let me explain…” Cavor called through the open door. “You see I’m a research scientist and I’m on the point of completing a most important scientific demonstration.” He explained, “As a matter of fact, it’s probably one of the most important scientific demonstrations of all time!”

“Big head, much,” Willow said to herself quietly as she poured boiling water into the teapot.

“I’d like to say how pleased I am to have you, Miss Rosenberg and your…erm…partner here as neighbours,” Cavor said shooting off at a tangent. “But the point is,” he appeared at the kitchen door making Willow start a little, “I moved here for the isolation.”

“But Professor Cavor,” Willow picked up the tray of tea things and started to carry them into the main room, “we won’t bother you,” she smiled as she put the tray down on the coffee table in front of the settees in the middle of the room, “it’s not like we’re going to have loud, all night parties…we came here to get away from that sort of thing.”

“Yes of course,” Cavor sat down on the settee facing the one Willow was sitting one, “I understand that, but…”

“Then what is it?” Willow started to pour the tea.

“Well, erm…” Cavor hesitated as he wondered how much it was safe to tell the young woman in front of him, “I must tell you there’s a certain amount of danger connected with my experiments. If it went wrong it might even damage the cottage here.”

“What?” Willow frowned, “Damage the cottage? What are you building up there a bomb?” Willow thought for a moment before asking, “It’s not a bomb, is it?”

“Oh no, no, no!” Cavor reassured Willow, “Nothing like that I assure you it’s just that some of the elements I use are a little unstable.”

“Unstable?” Willow queried, “Are you sure you’re not building a bomb?”

“Oh of course not,” Cavor seemed to be trying to back away from Willow even though he was still just sitting down, he glanced at his watch, “Oh look at the time,” he cried with false concern, he looked at his watch again and this time the colour drained from his face so fast that Willow thought he might faint, “THE TIME!?”

“W-what?” Willow almost dropped her teapot in shook at Cavor’s outburst.

“Sorry I’ve got to go!” Cavor stood up almost knocking over the tea things as he did so.

“But Professor you haven’t had your tea yet,” was the only thing Willow could think of saying as she watched the man in front of her dissolve into panic.

“No time!” Cavor appeared to have forgotten were the door was as he started to do headless chicken impressions, “No time at all…GIBBS!”

“Who the hell’s ‘Gibbs’?” Willow asked herself as she watched the professor find the door and open it.

“GIBBS!!!” Cavor yelled as he shot out of the door.

Following the rapidly moving scientist, Willow watched as he crossed the lock-gates, ran right past his bicycle, pushed his way through the hedge and made off across the fields toward the manor house.

“GIBBS!!!” Cavor yelled again as Willow walked over to the hedge and peered over the top at the fleeing man.

“Professor Cavor you’ve forgotten your bicycle,” she called after the fast moving academic.

“Yes!” Cavor looked back over his shoulder at Willow while he kept running towards the manor, “I have a bicycle…!”

“Watch out for the…” Willow called a warning as Cavor ran straight into the fence that separated the manor from the field, “…fence!” Willow winced in sympathetic pain as she watched Cavor disentangle himself from the fence and scramble back to his feet, “Ouch, that had to hurt.”

Distracted from the sight of Cavor and his antics by the sound of a car pulling up behind her, Willow turned to see that Kennedy had come back from the shops.

“What-cha-doin’?” Kennedy asked as she got out of the car and came to stand next to Willow, she caught a fleeting glimpse of Cavor as he disappeared into the manor.

“Oh, nothing much,” Willow sighed, she pointed to where Cavor had just been, “That’s our next door neighbour, Professor Cavor,” she explained, “I invited him in for a cup of tea then he left a little…you know…quickly, shouting for someone called Gibbs.”

“You didn’t _do_ anything to him did you?” Kennedy asked from under worried eyebrows.

“NO!” Willow pulled away from Kennedy and slapped her playfully on the arm, “Of course I didn’t, what do you think I am? Next you’ll be accusing me of eating children or something.”

“No I won’t,” Kennedy grinned as she snaked her arm around Willow’s waist, “but do warn me if you suddenly have an urge to live in a candy cottage.”

“Beast!” Willow muttered as they both turned away from the field, it was then Willow remembered the professor’s bike, “Oh his bicycle, we’ll have to take it back to him.”

“We can return it after we’ve got the shopping inside,” Kennedy walked over to the car as she spoke, “This Professor guy, did he say what sort of professor he was?”

“No,” Willow frowned, “I did ask but he didn’t say,” stopping as her frown got deeper she looked back towards the manor. 

“Well, he must have said something,” Kennedy seeing how distracted Willow was decided it would be quicker and safer for her to carry all the shopping by herself.

“He said he was a research scientist and his ‘demonstration’ might be dangerous,” Willow followed her heavily laden slayer across the lock-gates.

“Did you ask him if he was making a bomb?” Kennedy walked across the garden and waited at the door for Willow to open it for her.

“Of course I did,” Willow held open the door for her pack-slayer, “I’m not stupid y’know?”

“Never said you were sweetie…what did he say?” Kennedy headed towards the kitchen.

“No,” Willow replied.

“Well, he would say that won’t he?” Kennedy started to unpack the shopping.

“I suppose…” Willow agreed as she cast a nervous glance in the direction of the manor.

“He’s probably over there right now putting the finishing touches to his Doomsday Bomb,” Kennedy pointed out as she put the milk in the fridge.

“Yeah,” wailed Willow, “you think we should check him out?”

“Of course,” Kennedy stood up and smiled reassuringly at Willow, “apart from this sounding like the start of a really bad ‘Nancy Drew’ adventure, he left his bicycle here so we have a perfect excuse to stick our noses in.”

“And we have got particularly cute noses,” Willow agreed.

“The best,” Kennedy agreed before kissing Willow on the end of her nose.

0=0=0=0

**The Manor, some time later.**

Wheeling the bicycle between them, Willow and Kennedy crunched up the gravel drive towards the Manor. 

“Typical mock-Tudor Victorian monstrosity,” Kennedy observed.

“Huh?” Willow looked at her girlfriend.

“Hey, look, I studied ‘Art-History’ at school I might as well use what I learnt once in a while,” Kennedy explained.

“Well I think it’s nice,” Willow replied; she looked around at all the junk that was sitting on the overgrown front lawn, “apart from all the…erm…” Willow struggled to find a nice way of describing all the old furniture and bits of machinery that littered the garden.

“Junk?” Kennedy suggested only to get a frosty look from Willow, “Come on,” Kennedy shrugged after leaving the bike against what looked like an old boiler, “let’s see what's inside.”

“We just can’t go blundering around uninvited,” Willow hurried after the fast moving slayer as she headed towards the sturdy front door.

“Says who?” Kennedy grinned as she pushed open the front door.

A wave of hot dry air hit them as they walked cautiously in through the door.

“Easy to see where all the heat’s coming from,” Kennedy gestured to the rows of computers lined up across the big room just inside from the door.

Dressed in traditional white lab coat and clipboard a bespectacled young man hurried up and down the lines of computers as he made notes on his clipboard.

“Y’know,” Willow said quietly, “I’ve always wondered why they wear those coats and what they write on their clipboards.”

“Yeah,” Kennedy nodded in agreement, “it’s like the thing with the burning forty-five gallon oil drums.”

“Ah-ha! Miss Rosenberg!” Professor Cavor appeared from a door on the other side of the room, “To what do I own the…” Cavor’s eyes drifted over to where Kennedy was standing, “…is this your _friend_?”

“Erm, yeah this is my girlfriend, Kennedy Scapone,” Willow introduced Kennedy as she moved so she could see what was on the computer screens.

“Hi,” Kennedy called trying to distract Cavor long enough for Willow to get a good look at what was on the screens, “we brought back your bike.”

“Yes, thank-you very much,” Cavor hurried across the room and started to try to shepherd the two women out the door, “now I really must ask you to…”

“Hey!” Willow called as she looked at one of the screens closely, “This looks like a rocket trajectory…”

“Miss Rosenberg,” Cavor hurried over to Willow and tried to pull her away from the screen, “I really must ask you to leave…” he pointed towards the door, “…right now!”

“I don’t think so,” Kennedy moved like a blur as she came to stand protectively next to Willow; she turned to her girlfriend and asked, “what is it Will?”

“Looks…” Willow sat down in front of the screen and typed in some commands on a keyboard.

“NO!” Cavor once again tried to pull Willow away from the screen only for Kennedy to push him over onto his butt.

“It looks like…” Willow hardly noticed Cavor floundering about on the floor, she was too interested in what was on the screen; tapping a key she read the letters and numbers appearing on the screen before turning to look down at Cavor, “Planning on flying to the moon Professor?”

“GIBBS!!!!” Cried the Professor, “GRAB THEM!!!”

0=0=0=0


	3. Chapter 3

3.

**The Manor.**

“Hey!” cried Willow as Gibbs, a rather harassed looking research assistant, grabbed her arm.

“OOPH!” gasped Gibbs as Kennedy punched him in the stomach and knocked him to the floor.

“Please go!” begged Cavor as he tried to hustle both Kennedy and Willow towards the door.

“No way!” Willow snapped as she stamped on Cavor’s foot.

“AAAGH!” Cavor hopped away from the redhead just before his chin connected with Kennedy’s fist.

Still clutching his foot, Cavor was turned around by the force of Kennedy’s blow. Spinning like a top Cavor lost his balance and collided with one of the tables that had a computer sitting on top of it. The computer crashed to the floor the tube of its monitor popping loudly as it smashed. Everyone froze at the sound of the tube exploding and for a few moments calm returned to the room.

“Oh no!” groaned Cavor as he tried to nurse his crushed foot and bruised chin while at the same time crawl across the floor to where the smashed computer lay.

Groaning and clutching his stomach, Gibbs tried to use another computer table to help him get back to his feet. Leaning heavily against the table he noticed Cavor on the floor staring at the broken computer and the two young women standing over him. Deciding that he had an urgent appointment somewhere else, Gibbs turned and started for the door. Catching his feet in the many computer cables that criss-crossed the floor he tripped and fell bringing another machine crashing to the floor in the process.

“GIBBS!” Cavor yelled close to tears.

Ignoring his boss’ yell, Gibbs once more climbed to his feet, this time being careful where he stepped he ran for the door and disappeared outside.

“Ruined!” Cavor cried as he surveyed the wreck of his computer room, “RUINED!” he yelled again as he turned his head to look at Willow, “And it’s all your fault…”

“My fault?” Willow squeaked in surprise.

“If you hadn’t stuck your nose in where it wasn’t wanted,” Cavor explained, “none of this would have happened…” he took a deep breath, “…now everything’s ruined, my life’s work washed down the drain by two ham-fisted, clumsy females!”

“Hey watch who you’re calling clumsy and ham-fisted, mister,” Kennedy snarled as she came to stand protectively next to Willow.

“What do you need all these computers for anyway?” Willow asked as she looked round at the remaining machines.

“Oh…” Cavor groaned as he climbed slowly to his feet, “…I don’t suppose it matters now…everything’s ruined anyway.” Cavor took a deep calming breath, “If you must know I was running a simulation of my mission to the moon.”

“Mission to the moon?” both young women said in chorus.

“That’s right,” Cavor hopped over to a chair and sat down, “I was going to fly to the moon and back and prove once and for all that my new engines work.”

“You have a spaceship?” Kennedy asked as she looked around for any signs of Saturn Five rockets that might just happen to be lying around.

“Of course I do,” Cavor snapped angrily, “how else am I supposed to get to the moon…it’s in the greenhouse.”

“Greenhouse?” Willow and Kennedy looked at each other and then at Cavor before shuffling away from the obviously criminally insane scientist.

“Yes-yes,” Cavor nodded as he climbed to his feet again, “I’ll show you,” he started to limp towards the door by which Gibbs had fled, “might as well,” he muttered, “it’ll never work now.”

Casting each other bemused looks Willow and Kennedy followed the limping academic out of the door and into the garden.

“So, Professor Cavor,” Willow called as she and Kennedy followed the scientist through the junk filled gardens, “a spaceship, huh?”

“In the greenhouse…” Kennedy added with a grin.

“Yes of course where else would I put it?” Cavor wanted to know.

“Where else indeed,” Willow replied too quietly for Cavor to hear.

“So,” Kennedy called, “you’ve been planning on flying to the moon for a long time?”

“Since I was a boy,” Cavor sighed sadly, “In those days we were promised such wonders…” he paused for a moment remembering the promise of his youth, “…how space travel would become common place. Holidays on the moon; travel around the solar system, jet-packs…”

“Jet-packs?” Willow glanced at Kennedy just to ensure she was still there.

“Yes…” Cavor sighed again, “…but once man had landed on the moon a few times budgets were cut and everyone lost interest…fools!”

“Yeah right,” Willow agreed as she held on tightly to Kennedy’s hand.

“Here we are,” Cavor stopped and gestured to a large greenhouse situated behind the manor.

As greenhouses went this one was pretty big, in fact it was huge and sort of reminded Willow of pictures of the Brighton Pavilion that she’d seen.

“Wow, that’s a big greenhouse,” Willow looked at Kennedy, “don’t you agree, honey?”

“I’ve seen bigger,” Kennedy replied determined to be unimpressed.

“Well you might as well come inside,” Cavor removed a big, old, brass key from the pocket of his jacket.

Walking down three or four steps (the greenhouse had been built just below normal ground level) Cavor unlocked the double doors and pushed them open. Walking inside he didn’t bother inviting Willow and Kennedy in obviously assuming they’d just follow him. As the two women crossed the threshold they were assailed by the loud honking of half a dozen Canada geese that came at them flapping their wings and honking loud enough to wake the dead.

“My ‘guard dogs’,” Cavor laughed, “cheaper and much nicer than actual guard dogs.”

“The Romans used to use geese to guard the walls of Rome,” Willow pointed out.

“Surprised they didn’t all get eaten,” came Kennedy’s reply.

“Come on,” called Cavor as he started to push himself through the overgrown interior of the greenhouse.

Following the professor through the undergrowth, Willow’s mind went back to the time she and Kennedy had spent in South America and the couple of times they’d gone into the Amazonian Rain Forest. Only this time it wasn’t anywhere near as hot and there were no evil demons waiting to shoot them with poisoned darts.

After a few yards of pushing between overgrown shrubs, Cavor came out into a large cleared area at the centre of the greenhouse. There sitting on six legs and reaching up into the dome in the greenhouse’s roof stood Cavor’s spaceship. Having not really believed that there would be an actual spaceship, slayer and witch stood for a moment in surprise, even if this turned out to be some sort of mock-up it was still pretty impressive.

“Wow!” Willow looked up at the spherical ‘ship’.

“Cool,” agreed Kennedy as she started to walk all the way around the vessel.

“Yes,” Cavor smiled proudly, “it cost me every penny I had…but one trip to the moon would have paid me back a thousand fold, but now…” he glared at Willow as Kennedy was out of sight on the other side of the sphere, “…its all ruined, I’ve not got enough money to replace the equipment you smashed and there’s no time to rerun the simulations.”

“Simulations?” Willow frowned, “Okay so you were running simulations of your flight to the moon, assuming this thing,” she gestured at the sphere, “will even get off the ground…what I can’t understand is what you needed all those computers for…”

“Well that’s simple,” Cavor replied in a superior tone, “but I wouldn’t expect a young woman like yourself to understand…”

“Hey, you watch what you’re saying unless you want to spend a month in traction,” Kennedy called from the other side of the room.

“What wouldn’t I _understand_?” Willow wanted to know.

“Well,” Cavor sniffed, “by themselves none of those computers have the computing capacity to…”

“Hogwash,” Willow interrupted.

“Hogwash?” Cavor replied puzzled, “What do you mean ‘hogwash’?”

“Well its obvious to me that someone’s taken you for a ride about those computers,” Willow smiled, “I could run the simulation on my laptop!”

“WHAT!” Cavor shrieked, “How? You? How?”

“Hey,” Willow smirked, “I’m a bit of a computer whiz, y'know?”

“If ever a whiz there was,” Kennedy added as she walked from behind the spaceship and over to where Willow and Cavor stood, “I’m no rocket scientist…”

“You can say that again,” Willow mumbled under her breath.

“I heard that,” Kennedy gave her girlfriend a hurt look, “you wait ‘til I get you home.”

“All I meant was you have much better skills than being _a mere_ ‘rocket scientist’ sweetie,” Willow claimed.

“As I was saying,” Kennedy continued, “I’m no rocket scientists but I would have thought that you’d need some sort of engines if you wanted to fly to the moon.”

“I’m not a rocket scientist either,” Cavor announced, “which is why I’m not using rockets!”

“You’re not?” Willow asked disbelievingly.

“No,” Cavor replied with a smug grin.

“So how…” Willow was interrupted by Kennedy.

“I know!” Kennedy cried, “You’re going to harness up those geese and have them pull you to the moon…” she gave Cavor a pitying look, “…I think someone’s already tried that and it didn’t work.”

“NO!” Cavor shouted in frustration; he’d met with this same sort of small minded scepticism since he’d started his project twenty years ago. “I’ve invented a new type of propulsion, one that doesn’t need traditional rocket motors…”

Kennedy looked at the craft, she’d read some science-fiction over the years, mainly stuff from the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s. The books had had some plausible if slightly wild ideas about space travel, but this thing that Cavor had built didn’t fit in with any of them. Just as she was about to grab Willow and leave the old scientist to his dreams of going to the moon, Cavor spoke again.

“…I’ll be using my own invention,” Cavor gestured proudly to his craft, “the Cavor Anti-Gravity Engine, or in this case engines…”

“Anti…” Willow gasped.

“…gravity,” Kennedy added disbelievingly.

“Yes engines,” Cavor smiled.

“But that's impos…” Willow began.

“Yes impossible…” Cavor laughed a little insanely, “…that’s what everyone said…”

“And with good cause,” Willow announced, “as a famous Scottish engineer never tired of saying; ‘y’cannae break the laws of physics’.”

“Oh I didn’t break them,” Cavor informed his sceptical audience, “I just bend them a little…maybe put a dent in one or two of them.”

“Let me get this straight,” Kennedy stepped forward, “you’re claiming that you’ve found a way of manipulating gravity to let you fly?”

“To the moon,” Cavor giggled.

“You’re a loony,” Kennedy said quite forcefully, “something like that would take enormous amounts of power.”

“No,” Cavor shook his head, “just one small nuclear reactor to be precise.”

“Nuclear reactor!?” Willow and Kennedy took a long step away from the spaceship and clutched hold of each other.

“Don’t worry its quite safe,” Cavor reassured them, “at least I think its is, it all depends if I used enough shielding.”

The women took another step away from the vessel.

“So...so how does it work?” Willow asked hesitantly.

“Well,” Cavor put his hands behind his back and started to pace up and down in front of his ship, “to put it in its simplest terms; the gravitic engines allow me to manipulate the gravity of planetary bodies. By manipulating gravity I will be able to fly between the stars if I so desire….however that would take a much bigger ship.” Cavor smiled at the possibilities, “No more of that tedious acceleration-deceleration business. With my gravitic engines you can fly to your destination and just stop!

“Somehow I don’t think it’ll work like that,” Willow pointed out.

“Whatever,” Cavor shrugged, “my expedition to the moon will iron out all the minor problems like that.”

“Just how fast will this thing go?” Kennedy asked interested in spite of her doubts, “I mean how long do you expect it to take you to get to the moon…assuming this thing works.”

“Oooh,” Cavor smiled like a naughty schoolboy, “no more than a day.”

“A day?” Willow seemed to recollect that it had taken about a week for the Apollo missions to get to and from the moon.

“But of course that won’t happen now,” Cavor explained sadly, “since you destroyed my computers.”

“Hey!” Willow took a step towards Cavor before she remembered about the nuclear reactor and took a step back again, “Like I say I could run your simulation on my laptop, but…”

“But?” Cavor asked as hope slowly returned to him.

“But, I’ve got to be convinced that this…” words failed her as she pointed vaguely to the spaceship, “…this…thing works.”

“Of course it’ll work,” Cavor rushed to his craft and stroked one of the landing legs protectively.

“Prove it,” Willow challenged, “let me see it fly. Let me see it hover a few feet off the ground and then I’ll do your simulation for you.”

“Right,” Cavor pulled himself up straight, “if proof is what you want then proof you shall have!”

Watching as Cavor marched over to the leg that had a ladder attached, Kennedy stepped over to Willow as they watched Cavor disappear inside his machine.

“Erm, Willow,” Kennedy began, “do you know what you're doing here, don't you? I mean that thing might explode or something.”

“Explode?” Willow laughed, “I doubt that its even real, I mean where’s he going to get the nuclear fuel from?”

“The nuclear power station just down the coast?” Kennedy suggested.

“Oh yeah,” Willow frowned, “I’d forgotten about that…anyway,” she smiled, “gravitic motors that’s just all phooey…”

Interrupted by a high pitched whine that grew to fill the greenhouse, Willow stopped talking as her skin started to prickle from all the static electricity in the air and her hair began to stand on end. Watching in shocked amazement the two women saw the craft lift off the ground and float about two feet above the concrete of the greenhouse’s floor.

Looking very carefully neither woman could see any visible means of support that could make it look as if the machine was flying when it wasn’t. As far as they could see the craft was in fact holding itself up in the air. When they attempted to step closer it felt like they were trying to push against a semi-inflated balloon, the more they pushed the harder the ‘balloon’ pushed back.

After a few minutes the whining sound decreased in volume as the spaceship settled slowly to the ground. Eventually the sound stopped completely, the static electricity vanished and the vessel was sitting firmly on its legs again.

“Wow,” Willow breathed quietly.

“Jeez,” Kennedy agreed.

“You believe me now?” Cavor cried as he stuck his head out of the hatch leading to the vessel’s interior.

“Erm sort of,” Willow quickly brought her racing mind under control; if this thing actually worked as advertised it could completely change the world. “If I’m going to help you I’ll want to look at all your diagrams, I’ll want to inspect the ship and we’ll want to come with you.”

“To the moon?” Cavor asked uncertainly.

“To the moon?” Kennedy looked at Willow as if she’d spontaneously turned blue.

“Yep!” Willow grinned, “To infinity and beyond!”

0=0=0=0


	4. Chapter 4

4.

**The Greenhouse.**

Lying on her acceleration couch, Kennedy couldn't get the tune of 'Fly Me To The Moon' sung by Frank Sinatra out of her mind. She was also wondering how and why she’d let herself be railroaded into this, no doubt, foolhardy expedition. It was Saturday evening and in about an hour’s time she’d be blasting off for the moon…assuming that Professor Cavor’s strange craft actually worked and she didn’t end up gasping for air and dying of asphyxiation once they'd left Earth’s atmosphere. There was one consolation, she supposed, if she was to die horribly-horribly in the cold, hard, vacuum of space then at least Professor Cavor and Willow would be gasping their last right there next to her; Kennedy only hoped she’d have enough breath left to say ‘I told you so’ before she finally expired.

“Have I mentioned that I’m not too convinced about this entire flying to the moon thing?” Kennedy called as she swung her legs off the couch and sat up.

“Several times, sweetie,” Willow replied with a certain edge to her voice that told Kennedy that her girlfriend was starting to get annoyed.

“Look,” Cavor sighed heavily as he turned to look at Kennedy, “I keep telling you it’s all perfectly safe. This capsule is the best the Russians can build…”

“Why doesn’t that fill me with confidence?” Kennedy muttered as she got off the couch and started to check the consumable supplies one last time; they weren’t going to starve to death or run out of water, not if she had anything to say about it.

“…look,” Cavor didn’t hear or pretended not to hear Kennedy’s last comment, “after I added the gravitic motors and control systems I tested the capsule most thoroughly.” He gave Kennedy a pitying smile, “You’ll be perfectly safe…anyone would think you didn’t want to go.”

“Y’know honey,” Willow turned away from the control panel she was checking to look at Kennedy, “you don’t have to come if you don’t want to…I’ll be perfectly safe.”

“Perfectly safe?” Kennedy gasped in disbelief, “Don’t give me that, I know you Willow Rosenberg, if there’s trouble to be found you’ll find it,” she explained, “and what would Buffy say if I let you go to the moon alone…”

“But I won’t be alone,” Willow crossed the small compartment to put a comforting arm around Kennedy’s shoulder, “the professor’ll be with me.”

“That’s part of what I’m worried about,” Kennedy continued, “you know guys like him used to take girls up in balloons just so they could…” Kennedy shrugged and looked uncomfortable, “…y’know, ‘have their way with them’.”

“Madam!” Professor Cavor turned to face Kennedy shocked to his very core, “I resent that remark! I would never invent a new form of propulsion just so I could seduce young women!”

“And what if there’s monsters?” Kennedy added.

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” Cavor laughed, “of course there’s no monsters, nothing can live in a vacuum. Like I say we’ll be perfectly safe and there’ll be no monsters.”

“You’re one-hundred percent sure,” Kennedy pressed the scientist, “because if there are, don’t come crying to me when they impregnate you with their evil monster spawn.”

“I’m sure there’s no monsters…” Willow didn’t sound as convinced as she had been about the safety of the mission, “…but just to be on the safe side…”

“I’ve got a gun back at the cottage,” Kennedy announced, “and some swords, axes, knives and…”

“I’m sure weapons will not be necessary,” Cavor announced authoritatively.

“You better run and get them, sweetie,” Willow suggested, “oh and get my magic bag too would you?”

“On my way,” Kennedy climbed eagerly out of the capsule in her hurry to get weapons.

“Weapons?” Cavor scoffed, “Magic bags?” he laughed, “What foolishness is this, and I thought you were a woman of science, Miss Rosenberg.”

“Oh I am,” Willow insisted, “but previous experience suggests its best to be prepared. Like Kennie always says, ‘it’s better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it’.”

“What?” Cavor gave Willow a puzzled frown before shaking his head in dismay. “I’m really disappointed in you Miss Rosenberg, magic indeed…”

“Don’t knock it buster,” Willow advised before turning to complete her pre-flight checks.

“…if it wasn’t for the fact that I need you to help me pilot the craft,” Cavor explained, “I’d leave you and your friend behind and go by myself.”

“But you can’t can you?” Willow continued to check dials and switches, “You need me and I don’t go anywhere without Kennedy.”

The mention of monsters had made Willow reconsider the entire, going to the moon with Cavor option. What if Kennedy was right? What if there _were_ monsters, what if magic didn’t work off planet? This might be one small step for a witch, but it was a giant leap for witch-kind. No, Willow told herself, it was best to have all the bases covered and the best way she knew of to cover a base was by having a heavily armed slayer standing on it. Plus…well, Willow had to admit, it wouldn’t feel right to leave Kennedy behind.

0=0=0=0

**Later.**

Strapped to her acceleration couch, Kennedy watched and listened with half an ear as Willow and Cavor went through there last checks before take off, or, almost certain death as she liked to put it. Lying there with nothing to do, Kennedy (being cursed with an active imagination) had plenty of time to think of all the things that could go wrong, like…

They could suffocate, or be crushed by the g-forces caused by the spaceship's massive acceleration. Then assuming they got to the moon they might not be able to get back. If they couldn’t get back they could die in any one of a hundred different and horrible ways… Telling herself to snap out of it, Kennedy got a grip of her wild imaginings, she told herself that she should have more faith. Hadn’t Willow checked everything out? Hadn’t she spent most of Saturday going over Cavor’s notes and inspecting the ship? If Willow said that they’d be fine and the ship would work, shouldn’t that be good enough for her?

Well yes, it should, normally. Willow had voiced some concerns about her magic not working away from Earth. What if whatever made her a slayer didn’t work if she was off planet? There were a lot of unknowns here and a lot of things could go wrong, Kennedy calmed herself with the thought that they probably wouldn’t. Anyway, she had a good selection of weapons stored in the living quarters, so she was confident of dealing with any monsters that might crop up.

The habitable part of the spaceship was divided into two sections. Up front was the Soyuz command capsule, this was where Cavor and Willow would pilot the ship. Below and to the rear were the living quarters. This had originally been designed for a Russian space station that had been scrapped long before it had even got off the ground. It contained bunks, the washing and toilet facilities along with the cooking station and lockers containing all the supplies. It also housed the airlock that would allow them access to the moon’s surface.

Outside these two areas were the nuclear reactor that powered everything, the gravitic motors and the tanks for the spare oxygen and water, plus other useful things like emergency power units and air purification scrubbers. The entire vessel had then had a spherical casing placed around it to protect it from the ravages of re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere. Kennedy could see how the expense of building the ship could bankrupt some one and Cavor did seem so sure that it would work. Relaxing on her couch, she listened as Willow and Cavor came to the end of their pre-flight checks.

“Right!” Kennedy could hear the slight note of nervousness in Willow’s voice as she spoke, “Time to go I suppose, Professor Cavor?”

“Hmm, what?” Cavor glanced distractedly at Willow.

“Time to go,” Willow hinted.

“Hmm, yes, I…” Cavor hesitated, “…I can’t help but feel I’ve forgotten something.”

“Well, we’ve checked everything five times,” Willow pointed out.

“Did you switch the gas off in the house?” Kennedy asked.

“Hm, yes,” Cavor nodded.

“Cancelled the milk? Switched off the electricity, cancelled the papers?” Kennedy continued.

“Oh,” Cavor sighed, “I don’t suppose it’s important, oh-well here we go!” Cavor reached out to switch the switches that would activate the gravitic motors.

“Hey!” Willow called as she reached over to grab Cavor’s hand before he could switch anything, “Hold on there buster, we can’t just start off with an ‘oh-well here we go’.”

“Well what do you want me to say?” Cavor snapped testily.

“A countdown’s sorta traditional in these situations,” Willow pointed out.

“Yeah,” Kennedy agreed, “it’s not a real space mission without a countdown.”

“Women!” Cavor muttered, “I should have listened to what my mother used to say.”

“Why, what did she say?” Willow asked.

“I don’t know,” Cavor replied, “I never used to listen…oh-well, a countdown then,” Cavor sighed before taking a deep breath, “from ten?”

“Five’ll do,” Willow replied.

“Alright then,” Cavor rolled his eyes, “Five…four…three…”

“Motors charging,” Willow called as she flipped a multitude of switches; there was a loud hum and the ship began to throb with power.

“…two…” announced Cavor.

“Full power!” Willow cried as she studied the readouts on the screen in front of her.

“…one…LIFT OFF!”

Engines throbbing as indicator lights flashed on and off, the space craft started to lift itself off the ground. The entire machine trembled as it rose up to touch the roof of the greenhouse. For just a moment the greenhouse held the ship in place until the power of the motors overcame the structural integrity of the greenhouse and with a shattering of wood and glass the ship broke free and shot upward into the air.

Lying there with a great weight on her chest, Kennedy could only watch in amazement as the readout indicating their speed increasing with every passing second. Wondering when the inertial dampeners would kick in and prevent them all from being reduced to strawberry jam/jelly, she sighed with relief as the weight on her chest was reduced rapidly to normal and she could breathe again.

“Inertial dampeners, on line,” Willow announced.

“Leaving Earth’s atmosphere…NOW!” Cavor laughed, “It works! It really works!”

Willow and Kennedy looked at Cavor suspiciously, he caught their looks and regained control of his emotions.

“Well, of course,” Cavor coughed to cover his earlier slip, “I always knew it would work but there was always a chance…well, you know?”

“Of us all dying?” Willow suggested.

“Something like that,” Cavor admitted, “anyway it’s time for the post-launch checks…”

“I’ll make some tea then,” Kennedy suggested as she unstrapped herself from her couch and started to crawl towards the hatch leading to the living room.

“Two sugars please,” Cavor called to Kennedy’s retreating back.

0=0=0=0

Unlike its depictions in fiction, space flight is pretty boring, particularly on such a relatively short flight from the Earth to the Moon. Luckily the professor’s predictions for the speed of their passage appeared to have been on the conservative side. After completing the post-launch checks and drinking their tea they found they only had about eight hours before they had to do the pre-landing checks and touching down on the surface of the moon.

As either Willow or Cavor had to be at the controls all the time, in the unlikely event of anything going wrong when they’d need to fly the craft. Kennedy did all the cooking, actually this only involved sticking packaged meals into a microwave and pushing the right buttons. After which she’d dispose of the packaging and any left overs. It was while Cavor was in the living quarters sleeping that Kennedy joined Willow in the control capsule. They watched the moon getting bigger and bigger in the forward monitor.

“I wonder what we’ll find?” Kennedy asked as she got comfortable in the couch next to Willow’s.

“Rocks, dust,” Willow replied as she checked a readout.

“So, you don’t think we’ll find gold and jewels like Cavor believes we will?” Kennedy settled back and took Willow’s hand in her own.

“Nope,” Willow shook her head, “I remember watching a documentary film about the Apollo landings on TV years ago,” she sighed sadly, “it’s all grey, nothing spectacular.”

“So, why…?”

“Look,” Willow glanced at her girlfriend, “we go to the moon, pick up a load of moon rock. Take it back to Earth and say, ‘Hey we’ve got a real cheep way of space travel and we’ve got the moon rock to prove it. Cavor will be made for life.”

“What about you Will?” Kennedy asked, “Don’t you want any of the fame and fortune?”

“Me?” Willow laughed, “Fame and fortune will go great with the secret identity, the witchcraft and the monsters an’ anyway I’ve got you, that’s enough fame and fortune for me.”

“You say the sweetest things,” Kennedy squeezed Willow’s hand gently.

“What about you?” Willow asked, “Just because I don’t want the fame and fortune there’s nothing to stop you having it.”

“No,” Kennedy shook her head, “it’d get in the way of the slaying and that’s more important.”

“Goddess aren’t we both oh-so-noble?” Willow gasped.

“I know,” Kennedy agreed with a grin, “makes you want to vomit!”

“Look,” Willow nodded to the ships clock, “you better get Cavor up, it’s nearly time for his watch.”

“Yeah, okay, I’ll go wake him,” Kennedy turned towards the living quarters and paused, “y’know what I find so disappointing about all this?”

“What’s that honey?” Willow glanced over her shoulder at her girlfriend.

“Well,” Kennedy sighed, “with all this artificial gravity there’s no chance of trying out any sex in zero-g.”

“Perhaps on the way home sweetie,” Willow laughed.

0=0=0=0

**Above the Lunar Surface.**

“You know,” Willow said as she watched the monitor as the craft sank slowly towards the moon’s surface, “I feel this is like cheating or something.”

“What?” Cavor glanced across the capsule at Willow, “Cheating? What d you mean?”

“Well,” Willow shrugged, “I can’t help but feel space flight should be harder than this…this is like driving a car.”

“So we won’t be seeing Buffy up here any time soon,” Kennedy quipped.

“Hey,” Willow frowned as she turned to defend her old friend, “Buffy’s driving has improved a lot ever since she went on that course.”

“If you say so sweetie, if you say so,” Kennedy wasn’t convinced.

“Could I have some quiet please,” Cavor called, “I have to juggle the power of the motors against the moon’s gravitational pull. If I don’t get it just right we’ll either crash or bounce off and have to start all over again.”

“Me an’ my big mouth saying it was too easy,” Willow whispered.

“What’s our altitude?” Cavor wanted to know.

“Five hundred metres,” Willow informed him, “Rate of descent, ten metres per second.”

“Too fast,” Cavor made some adjustments.

“Rate of descent now one metre per second,” Willow called out.

“Too slow,” again Cavor adjusted his controls.

“Altitude now two-fifty metres, rate of descent five metres per second,” Willow read the numbers from her readouts before beginning a slow countdown. “Two hundred…one-fifty…one-hundred….fifty,” the craft slowed some more, “Forty…thirty…” the tension grew as they dropped slowly towards the grey, desolate surface, “…twenty…ten…five…four…three…two…touchdown!” Cried Willow, “The Eagle has landed!”

“Motors powering down,” Cavor announced, “power levels stabilising.”

“Wow!” gasped Kennedy, “That was a major anti-climax!”

0=0=0=0


	5. Chapter 5

5.

**The Moon.**

“You only packed _two_ space suits?” Kennedy looked from the suit she was holding up in front of her to the one held by Professor Cavor.

“Well, I thought there’d only be Gibbs and myself aboard,” the academic replied defensively, “I wasn’t expecting to pick up hitchhikers along the way!”

“Hitchhikers, huh?” Kennedy snapped, “I’ll give you hitchhikers…”

“Kennie, sweetie,” Willow called from the other side of the living quarter’s module, “its okay, we can share…”

“Share?” Cavor and Kennedy cried in chorus as they turned to stare at Willow.

“Look,” Willow said into the silence that followed her last statement, “you and the professor can use the suits first, then the second time we go out I’ll use one of the suits, okay?”

“Well if you’re sure,” Kennedy replied reluctantly.

“I’m sure,” Willow nodded, “after all this is Professor Cavor’s expedition…”

“I’m glad to see at least one of you is talking sense,” Cavor gave Kennedy the ‘evil eye’ as he climbed back into the control module dragging his suit behind him. “Now if you don’t mind I’m going to change.”

“Here sweetie,” Willow crossed the module to stand next to Kennedy, “let me give you a hand.”

After quickly stripping off down to her underwear Kennedy let Willow help her into the first layer of the space suit.

“Here let me connect up the plumbing,” Willow said as she knelt down in front of her girlfriend.

“You know,” Kennedy tried to ignore what Willow was doing, “it’d be easier if we switched off the gravity…OW! That hurt!”

Although the living quarters were more spacious than the control module it was still cramped. Switching off the artificial gravity would let them use what space there was to its fullest advantage.

“Sorry sweetie,” Willow apologised as she stood up and helped Kennedy into the top half of the suit, “talking of gravity,” she added, “remember it’ll only be about one-sixth of what you’re used to okay?”

“Yeah right,” Kennedy tried to remember the film of the first moon landings that she’d watched when she was at school, “I think you need to hop or something to move around.”

“Hey,” Willow grinned as she helped Kennedy into the outer layer of the suit, “you’re a slayer, I have every confidence that you’ll work it out.”

“Thanks, Will,” Kennedy leaned towards Willow and kissed her lightly on the lips.

“Hey,” Willow grinned, “that’s okay.”

“So once I’ve made sure everything is safe…” Kennedy began only to have Willow interrupt her.

“Look, sweetie, I’m sure there’s no monsters out there,” Willow explained.

“Whatever,” Kennedy gave Willow a sceptical look, “like I was saying once I know its safe we can both go out.”

“What about Cavor?” Willow asked.

“He can stay here and watch,” Kennedy pointed to the camera on the side of her helmet.

“Are you dressed?” Cavor called from the control module.

“Yes!” Willow and Kennedy called in unison.

“Right then,” Cavor struggled out of the control module’s hatch and into living quarters, “before we go outside we better check that the suits are in full working order.”

“Any reason they shouldn’t be?” Willow asked suspiciously.

“No,” Cavor shook his head, “they’re perfectly safe…well I think they’re perfectly safe,” he hesitated before adding, “they were bought second hand off the Russians, you know?”

The next ten minutes were spent carefully checking the suits to make sure they were airtight and that all their systems were working perfectly. Eventually, Cavor was satisfied, picking up his helmet he headed towards the airlock.

“As this is the culmination of my life’s work,” he stood and struck a self-important pose in front of the airlock, “I think it behoves me to say a few words…”

“Only if you want your tongue ripped out,” Kennedy observed.

“Sweetie,” Willow rested her hand on Kennedy’s shoulder, “be nice.”

Kennedy rolled her eyes, the truth was she was pretty excited about the idea of walking on the moon and she wanted to get out there and start walking!

“You’ve spoilt the moment now,” Cavor sulked.

“Now look what you’ve done,” Willow gave her girlfriend a disapproving look.

“Sorry,” Kennedy sighed heavily, “but can we get on now?”

Giving Willow one last kiss, Kennedy put on her helmet and let her check that it was sealed correctly and that her life support pack was supplying her with enough air to breath. Once Willow had finished with Kennedy’s suit she moved to check out Cavor’s.

“Right then,” Cavor said nervously after Willow had finished checking his suit, “let’s get going.”

Turning the wheel on the face of the airlock door, Cavor stood back as he swung the door open. Gesturing to Kennedy he indicated that she should precede him into the small chamber beyond the door. Stepping in behind her, Cavor pulled the door shut before spinning the wheel and sealing them in. Once satisfied that the airlock was airtight he pressed some buttons on a panel by the hatch and Kennedy found she could hear a faint hissing as the oxygen was pumped out of the chamber. Slowly the hissing sound faded to nothing and the two moon walkers were left standing in a vacuum. Pushing passed Kennedy, Cavor spun the wheel on the outer door and pushed it open, he took a moment to take in the view before crawling through the hatch and jumping down to the surface.

“YIPPEEEE!” Cavor yelled in his excitement as he floated slowly to the surface, his boots throwing up little clouds of dust as he landed.

Now it was Kennedy’s turn, after crawling through the hatch, she stood on the little platform just outside the airlock.

“Wow!” Kennedy breathed softly, unlike Cavor she wanted to stand and take in the view before she did anything, “Are you getting all this Will?”

“Sound and picture’s coming in clear as a bell,” Willow replied breathlessly, “and by the way…I'll see your ‘wow’ and raise you a ‘golly’!”

The ship had landed at the head of what looked like a long valley. On either side there were moderately high, craggy mountains. Between the mountains were gently rolling hills covered in the fine grey moon dust. If it looked like anything Kennedy had seen on earth it looked a little like pictures of Afghanistan she’d seen on TV but in grey and (she hoped) with no Afghans.

Hearing Cavor’s excited chatter over her radio link, Kennedy turned her upper body so she could see what he was doing. The scientist was acting in a most unscientific manner. He was running (or at least he was trying to run) around sending up great sprays of dust each time his boots hit the ground. Every few steps he'd lose his balance and fall flat on his face. Each time he did, Kennedy half expected to hear the man’s face plate crack and his screams as the air in his suit was sucked out into vacuum.

“Hey, Professor,” Kennedy called urgently, “calm down!”

Stepping off the platform, Kennedy floated gently to the surface. As she landed she bent her legs to soak up her momentum thus preventing herself from bouncing upwards again. Standing up straight she ignored Cavor’s child-like cries of joy for a moment, turning she looked towards the great blue orb of the Earth as it appeared to hover like a great big classroom globe in the velvety black sky above her; she felt she should say something. Patting the stake that was in the utility pocket on her leg she smiled.

“We came with a stake for all human-kind,” Kennedy grinned in the privacy of her own helmet; she wondered if the earth-glow would have the same effect on vamps as sunlight.

“Very nice sweetie,” Willow’s voice came to Kennedy's ears like she was in the suit with her, “but you better calm Cavor down before he goes into orbit.”

Looking around, Kennedy saw Cavor jumping up and down in the dust. Each time he landed he’d push himself off again and he’d float just a little higher. Pausing for just a moment, Kennedy wondered just how hard you had to jump to achieve escape velocity on the Moon. Being a slayer and capable of jumping pretty high even on Earth this was something she’d have to watch out for.

“Professor Cavor!” Kennedy called over her radio as she bounced towards the overexcited scientist, “Cool it and stop jumping around!”

Kennedy’s own form of locomotion appeared to her to be much more effective than Cavor’s insane bouncing. What you had to remember, she found herself telling Willow, was that although you might feel lighter you still had the same mass as you did on Earth and you needed to think before you tried to stop or turn. Eventually she got ahead of Cavor and was waiting for him as he floated back down to the surface. Grabbing hold of his arm, Kennedy held on anchoring him to the surface and preventing him from jumping again.

At least that’s what Kennedy hoped would happen, some how Cavor slipped from her grip and sent her stumbling to the ground as he jumped high into the inky black sky once more. Scrambling to her feet again, Kennedy saw Cavor leap high into the sky. He also appeared to have put on more than a little forward motion and was now drifting towards an area of rough ground that was littered with rocks, some of which were as big as houses.

“CAVOR!” Kennedy yelled as she made off after him.

Bouncing rapidly after the falling scientist, Kennedy was just in time to see him land in amongst the boulders. Skidding around one car sized piece of rock, she found him trapped between two smaller boulders.

“What the feck do you think you’re doing?” Kennedy demanded as she came to a halt next to the man, “you could have ripped your suit and suffocated.”

“What?” Cavor panted as he struggled between the two rocks trying to free himself, “Oh! Yes of course,” he gasped as he suddenly realised what he’d done, “Oh my, you must think I’m being very foolish.”

“Foolish wasn’t the word I was thinking of,” Kennedy replied as she studied the problem from all angles before she even attempted to get Cavor free; up on the moon you had to think about every action before you even moved a finger.

“You see,” Cavor continued apparently oblivious to Kennedy’s attempts to get him free, “I’ve been dreaming of this moment since I was six, now I’m actually here…”

Looking at the man Kennedy smiled, she knew something of how he must be feeling; his euphoria must be similar to how she felt when she’d become a slayer or when Willow had agreed to start their relationship. Kennedy placed both her hands under Cavor’s arms and heaved, but not too hard. Almost immediately, Cavor came free and the two moon-walkers floated a few inches into the ‘air’ before settling gently to the surface once again.

“Thank-you, Miss Scapone,” Cavor held out a gauntleted hand to her, “you probably saved my life there.”

“It’s what I do,” Kennedy said quietly as she shook Cavor’s hand.

“Right then,” Cavor sounded uncomfortable, a little like Giles when Buffy hugged him, “time to start acting in a more scientific manner. First I think we should…”

“Hey do you feel that?” Kennedy could feel strong vibrations coming up through her booted feet, “Earthquake?”

“Moon-quake,” Cavor corrected absently as he looked around searching for the cause of the vibrations.

His eyes darting this way and that, Cavor could see nothing that would explain the present disturbance.

“Most odd,” he muttered into his radio pick up.

“Hello, Willow,” Kennedy called thinking it might be best to check in with Willow, “are you getting this? Are there any signs of a moon-quake near you?”

Kennedy’s heart started to race as no reply came from Willow in the space ship. The silence stretched as the ‘quake’ got stronger.

“There’s no reply from Willow!” Kennedy cried as she struggled to keep her balance.

“I expect it’s…” Cavor began just as the tremors stopped, “Oh! How strange, what was that you were saying my dear?”

“I was saying,” Kennedy explained, “that we’ve lost contact with Willow, we better go back and check everything’s alright.”

“Yes perhaps you’re right, I…” Cavor started to turn back the way they’d come, he froze in mid-turn, “OH-MY-GOD!”

Going for the stake in her pocket, Kennedy turned to face the moon-monster that was scaring the life out of Cavor. But there was no monster; in fact Kennedy was in two minds as to what would be worse; a monster or what she was actually seeing. Right there, where she’d just been standing while she’d been figuring out how to get Cavor free, was a large round hole, perhaps five metres across. But what was even more worrying, or curious (depending how you looked at it), was the huge lens-like piece of glass that covered the hole.

“It’s a lens,” gasped Cavor as he moved cautiously towards the hole.

“A lens?” Kennedy asked, “What would a lens be doing in a hole on the moon…and who made it?”

“That’s what I want to find out, my dear,” Cavor was now kneeling down at the edge of the lens peering in.

“Is it man-made?” Kennedy asked as she came to stand behind Cavor.

Joining the scientist in peering into the hole, Kennedy found that she could just make out a deep shaft leading down into the very depths of the moon; running around the shaft in a long spiral were some stone steps.

“I don’t think this could be man-made,” Cavor reached out to touch the glass: it seemed to vibrate slightly under his fingers.

“Perhaps it was built by the Nazis,” Kennedy whispered as she got down on her hands and knees next to Cavor.

“Nazis?” Cavor asked curiously.

“Yeah, you hear stories, y’know?” Kennedy explained.

“My dear young woman,” Cavor laughed, “I think you’ve been reading too many sensational articles in the worse sort of…”

“Professor!” Kennedy gasped as she dragged Cavor away from the edge.

“WHAT!?” Cavor cried as he tried to struggle free of Kennedy’s vice-like grip, “What’s the matter with you, what do you…”

“Something moved!” Kennedy whispered as visions of moon-monsters filled her mind once more.

“Moved?” Cavor tried to get back to the lens so he could see for himself.

“Something in the shadows,” Kennedy explained, “I couldn’t see exactly what but there’s something down there.”

“You’re just imagining it,” Cavor tried to persuade Kennedy to let him go by being calm and reasonable, “it was likely just a trick of the light. This artefact is probably thousands of years old, nothing could be living down there now. Whoever built this died millennia ago.”

“Then who opened the lens?” Kennedy asked; a plan of action had already formed in her mind.

First she’d get Cavor back to the ship and check that Willow was alright. Next she’d come back, smash her way in and slay every evil-moon-monster/Nazi she could find thus saving Earth from invasion.

“I don’t know,” Cavor sighed, “but I’m sure it isn’t moon-monsters, I expect it was an automated system…” Cavor paused to look around, “…I wonder if there’s a way in?”

0=0=0=0


	6. Chapter 6

6.

**The Moon.**

As it turned out the airlock that would let the adventurers into the shaft was hidden in a fake boulder. It seemed that once they'd started to look for a way in it was easy enough to find one. Which was just as well because Kennedy was more worried about why she couldn't contact Willow than looking for ways to get into the mysterious underground world beneath her feet.

“I expect it's a minor glitch in the communications system,” Cavor observed as he tried to open the airlock door, “nothing to worry about.”

“Nothing to worry about huh?” Kennedy glared through her face plate at the struggling academic, “And didn't you say all this equipment was the best money could buy, so why's it broken down?”

“Did I say that?” Cavor stopped trying to open the airlock and stood up straight to turn and look at Kennedy; the sun reflecting off his faceplate and prevented her from seeing his facial expression but he did seem to be shuffling his feet guiltily. “I'm sure I meant, 'the best _Russian_ equipment money could buy'. I'm certain there's nothing to worry about, now come and give me a hand, this lever's stuck.”

Shuffling over to where Cavor stood, Kennedy studied the lever that held the airlock door closed for a moment. Quickly working out what needed to be done, she reached out with her right hand and pulled, the door swung open easily to reveal a small chamber.

“Oh!” Cavor said in surprise at how easily Kennedy had opened the door, “I must have loosened it for you.”

“Whatever,” Kennedy's shrug was lost under the bulk of her space suit.

Leading the way, Cavor stepped into the airlock. The chamber was only about four feet square and a little over five feet high.

“Whoever this was designed for must be pretty short in stature,” he observed while he searched for any controls that might activate the airlock and allow them access to the shaft below the lens.

“In that case,” Kennedy announced as she squeezed in behind Cavor, “anyone finding your space ship must think we're all four feet tall or something.”

“What?” Cavor turned to look at Kennedy which was no mean feet in the cramped confines of the airlock, “Oh yes,” he chuckled, “I see what you mean.”

“Okay, have you found a way in?” Kennedy wanted to get on so she could get back to the spaceship and check on Willow.

Deep down Kennedy told herself that Willow would be fine, after all she was the mega-witch, the _almost_ destroyer of worlds, but... But, she was used to being there for Willow just in case whatever was threatening her needed a good, slayer strength, right hook rather than blast of magic that might have the potential of destroying the world.

“The only control seems to be another lever,” Cavor pointed out unaware of Kennedy's internal turmoil; he threw himself against the lever, like its brother outside it didn't move. “Stuck!” Cavor gave up on the lever before asking, “Did you shut the outside door?”

“Yeah,” Kennedy replied, “of course I did...here let me have a go.”

“What?” Cavor tried the lever again before adding, “It's too stuck for you to shift it, my dear.”

“Oh get out of my way!” Kennedy snapped as she started to push her way around Cavor.

There was a lot of pushing and shoving and squeezing as Kennedy fought her way past Cavor. In the confined space of the air lock their bulky spacesuits made moving harder than if they'd been wearing their normal clothing. However, Kennedy eventually got to the hatch and once again she studied the level. To be honest there wasn't much to study, the lever simply stuck out from the hatch almost begging to be pulled.

“Hold on,” Kennedy took a grip of the lever while bracing herself against the hatch itself.

“My dear young woman,” Cavor began, “you'll never get...” the hatch opened silently under Kennedy's hand, “...Oh!” Cavor watched as yet again he was proved wrong, “Well,” he sighed, “I must have loosened it for you...again.”

0=0=0=0

**Inside the Moon.**

Peering out through the now opened hatch, Kennedy saw a short corridor or tunnel leading to what looked like the top of a flight of stairs.

“Oh good grief!” Cavor exclaimed as he pushed his way past Kennedy and stepped out into the passageway, “This is amazing!” He laughed as he ran his gauntleted hands over the wall of the tunnel, “Hacked from the very rock itself!”

“Yeah, whatever,” Kennedy, who'd seen more than her fair share of tunnels was not as impressed as she might have been, she was more concerned with what might have done the tunnelling.

“I'd hazard a guess that this tunnel must have been built eons ago,” Cavor informed Kennedy excitedly.

“What makes you say that?” Kennedy asked as she looked around; as far as she could tell the tunnel could have been built last week, “Or have you got some exotic device for telling the age of tunnels?”

“What?” Cavor asked distractedly, “Oh, no, of course not...now,” he started to move towards the stairs, “I wonder where these stairs lead?”

“Hey, Professor,” Kennedy called as she bounced carefully after him, “let me go first, okay?”

“No, no, no,” Cavor gasped, “what sort of man do you take me for to let a young woman take the lead into what could be a dangerous situation.”

“So, you admit there could be danger?” Kennedy replied quickly.

“Erm...” Cavor realised that he might have painted himself into a corner, “...there could be rock slide or a danger of cave-ins. Unless you have a background in geology you won't know what to look for.”

“Yeah, like, whatever,” Kennedy pushed passed Cavor, “I'll take my chances.”

Leading the way along the passageway to the top of the stairs, Kennedy saw that they led into what looked like a wider corridor, possibly leading to the stairs they'd seen going around the shaft. Cautiously making her way down the stairs, Kennedy stepped out into the corridor below and stopped and stared in wonder.

They were indeed in the shaft that they had seen through the lens on the surface. The shaft itself was wider than the lens so as to accommodate the stares that wound around it leading down into the very bowels of the moon. Even without any exotic rock ageing devices, Kennedy could tell everything was very old. Behind her Cavor started to babble excitedly as he stepped onto the pathway. Tuning out the academic's overexcited ramblings, Kennedy walked on a couple of yards before looking up.

Above her she could see the lens that had first given this underground 'world' away. It appeared to have been built to focus the sun's rays into the shaft. A great beam of light shone down into the depths of the shaft for what purpose she didn't know, possibly it was some form of solar energy collector. It was then that she noticed something odd. Dreary, half forgotten memories of science classes came back to her mind as she watched the dust motes dancing in the beam of light before her. Surely, she told herself, that shouldn't be happening, also wasn't there something about light not forming beams in a vacuum; there being nothing for all the little photons to bounce off.

“Erm, Professor,” Kennedy began as she pointed to the great beam of light.

“What, what?” Cavor stopped his overexcited exclamations and looked to where Kennedy was pointing.

“Should that be happening?” Kennedy asked.

“What? What do you...” Cavor shut up and looked more closely at the little pieces of dust that danced like moths in the beam of focused sunlight, “Oh!” he gasped, “I say you're right, that shouldn't be happening, unless...”

Before Kennedy could stop him, Cavor had unsealed the faceplate of his helmet and opened it.

“NOOOOO!” Kennedy screamed as she frantically tried to shut Cavor's helmet and stop him from decompressing.

“Its alright!” Cavor fought off Kennedy's wildly waving hands, “It's alright,” he repeated when Kennedy started to realise he'd not died, “there's an atmosphere.”

“Oh,” Kennedy looked closely at Cavor just to reassure herself that the man was in fact telling the truth, “there is?”

“Yes,” Cavor nodded, “its a little humid and there's an odd smell but it all seems to be in order. You might as well open your helmet and save your air, we could be down here for some time.”

“You think?” Kennedy once again told herself that she should be checking that Willow was alright; but, it wasn't every day you found evidence of extra terrestrial life.

Telling herself that Willow could look after herself, Kennedy unsealed her helmet and slid her faceplate open. Sniffing cautiously she found herself agreeing with Cavor that it was a little humid and there definitely was an odd smell. Otherwise the atmosphere appeared perfectly breathable.

“Lets explore,” Cavor said as he squeezed past Kennedy and headed on down the stairs.

Giving a totally imperceptible shrug, Kennedy followed the scientist down the stairs. They'd been bouncing down the stairs for almost five minutes when they came to a large chamber with an enormous, angled, mirror assembly which directed the focused sunlight into a side tunnel.

“Miss Scapone,” Cavor gasped as he looked at the giant mirror in rapt wonder, “look at the size of that prism assembly.”

“Yeah, very nice,” Kennedy conceded, she pointed to another nearby tunnel that sloped downwards, “lets see what's down here....CAVOR!” 

Pointing down the tunnel, Kennedy saw the strange shadow of a many legged creature cast against the tunnel wall by something as it made off further into the complex.

“So much for there not being monsters on the moon,” she growled, “when will you people realise there's monsters everywhere?”

“I'm sure it was just a trick of the light,” even though he said it Cavor didn't sound as if he believed himself, adding, “I knew we should have brought your gun.”

“Too late now,” Kennedy moved towards the tunnels entrance, “come on, we better take a look.”

“But there might be monsters down there,” Cavor wailed.

“Oh I see, joining me in the 'monster club' now are we?” Kennedy replied sarcastically, “Come on.”

Taking the lead, Kennedy led them along a short tunnel to a wider, higher chamber where strangely coloured crystals grew from the floor and walls. Stopping to examine the crystals Cavor had to be pulled along before they would get moving again. Going a little further they had to squeeze through a narrow-mouthed cleft in the rock which brought them out onto a narrow ledge. Standing on the edge of the rock ledge the two intrepid explorers looked down at the strange river that flowed sluggishly below them. Whatever the river contained it was blue, like the stuff you got in freezer packs. It appeared to have the consistency of slush and every now and then large bubbles would appear on its surface; bursting they sent little clouds of white vapour into the air.

“Well I never, its fantastic,” Cavor breathed quietly.

“I can believe that,” Kennedy agreed, before pointing along the ledge, “come on, that monster must have gone this way.”

Going on a little further they found that the ledge came to a sudden and precipitous halt, if the monster had come this way it had obviously found another way out. Standing and looking down at the sluggish, blue river in disappointment, Kennedy eventually shrugged and turned around. Crying out in surprise she pointed at the strange creature that was blocking their exit and pointing a spear with a sharp looking metal point at them.

“What is it, Professor?” Kennedy gasped.

“It's some sort of moon creature...” Cavor began only to have Kennedy interrupt him.

“Well, duh,” she mocked, “of course it's a moon creature, we're on the moon!”

The creature stood about four feet tall, it looked a little like an ant but it stood on its two hind pairs of legs and used its two front legs as arms which were at the moment pointing a spear at them. It had a long horse-like face with two, large faceted eyes. There was a set of small mandibles at its mouth and long antenna where a horse would have its ears. It was a dark grey or black and made a strange high pitched chirruping sound as it jerked its weapon at the two intruders.

Taking the lead, Kennedy started to move slowly towards the creature. The moon-creature hadn't made any really threatening moves towards them so she decided on a friendly approach (unlike Buffy she didn't go to violence as her default answer to anything strange). The creature just stood there as she and Cavor got closer to it, this must be a guard, she told herself, put there to look out for intruders (like herself and Cavor).

“We come in...” before she could get the word 'peace' out several more moon-creatures appeared and started to chirrup with the first. “Back!” she told Cavor urgently as the little insect-like creatures started to shuffle towards them.

The lead creature jerked his spear more urgently at Kennedy's middle as the other moon-creatures forced the earthlings back towards the edge of the ledge. By the time Cavor and Kennedy had reached the end of the pathway the tunnel behind them appeared to be full of chirruping moon-creatures.

“That sound they're making must be some sort of warning signal,” Cavor explained.

“Yeah, great,” Kennedy agreed, “but where do we go now, we've run out of path!”

Just as she spoke a walkway made of stone lowered itself from the other side of the chasm that held the strange river. From the creature's gestures they appeared to want Cavor and Kennedy to cross the bridge and go into the dark tunnel on the other side.

“Looks like they want us to cross over,” Cavor stated the obvious.

“Tell me something new,” Kennedy sighed; she watched as the creature with the spear jabbed it towards her middle.

If the spear point connected with her suit there was a good chance that it'd rip and she wouldn't be able to go outside until it was repaired, if Cavor had remembered to bring any repair kits with him, that is.

“You go first,” Kennedy told Cavor.

Gingerly the scientist started to inch his way across the bridge. Plainly he weren't moving fast enough for the moon-creatures and the one with the spear lunged towards Kennedy's stomach. Sure that this time the spear would make connect with her suit, Kennedy parried the spear thrust with her arm. Knocking the spear easily from the moon-creature's hands, she realised just how weak the creatures must be compared to her. Possessed of super-human strength in Earth's gravity, on the moon she must appear impossibly strong. The time had come for a demonstration of slayer power.

0=0=0=0


	7. Chapter 7

7.

**Inside the Moon.**

With one sweep of the arm, Kennedy sent half-a-dozen moon-creatures tumbling into the sluggish blue river bellow. The creatures spun slowly through the air to eventually splash into the viscus blue liquid and sink slowly beneath its surface. However, Kennedy was only vaguely aware of what was happening to the moon-creatures. It seemed as soon as she'd fought off one wave of grey-black creatures another would replace them. They jumped onto her back or tried to grab hold of her arms and legs. Moving through the sea of moon-creatures, Kennedy sent dozens to a low gravity, watery death as she pushed them aside. So far only the first moon-creature had been armed and the creature's mandibles appeared incapable of puncturing her suit.

“NOOOOOOO!” Cavor cried from behind Kennedy.

Glancing over her shoulder Kennedy saw Cavor still standing on the bridge clutching his helmeted head in his hands as he watched the battle in horror. Lashing out with her hands and feet, she cast more moon-creatures into the chasm and was able to advance a little further towards the passageway that led back up to the airlock.

“No, leave them, Miss Scapone, please!” Cavor begged as more moon-creatures were sent to a lazy, low gravity death.

“You've changed your tune!” Kennedy called back, she wasn't even out of breath; now she'd got the measure of the moon-creatures she was able to concentrate on getting them out of her way knowing that they couldn't really harm her, “Not so long ago you were wishing we'd brought my gun.”

“But they're peaceful creatures,” Cavor explained.

“WHAT!?” Kennedy turned on Cavor absently knocking another handful of moon-creatures over the edge as she did so, “How do you work that out?” she demanded, “They're the ones that started prodding people with spears.”

“They were only protecting their territory,” Cavor replied as another dozen moon-creatures described long, slow arcs before floating almost gently to the surface of the river below.

“They could have just asked us to leave,” Kennedy pointed out.

“But...” Cavor stopped speaking as the moon-creatures retreated before Kennedy the Moon-creature Slayer.

“There...” Kennedy stood hands on hips as the surviving moon-creatures scurried off into fissures and cracks in the tunnel walls, “...I won,” the young slayer gave the professor a hard look, “no thanks to you.”

“You've certainly given them a taste of human aggression,” Cavor complained sadly, “our first contact with extraterrestrials and it ends in violence. They'll soon be here in their thousands,” he gasped, “the news'll be running from gallery to gallery even as we speak!”

“All the more reason for us to stop gossiping and start walking,” Kennedy snapped.

Forgetting about the low gravity, Kennedy did in fact try to walk instead of bouncing and nearly fell flat on her face.

“Damn-it!” she muttered as she pushed herself gently back to her feet, she turned her body to face Cavor so she could see him clearly, “Come-on lets move unless you want to meet up with all these thousands of little monsters you think are on their way.”

“I should have come on my own,” Cavor moaned as he started to follow Kennedy towards the exit, “I knew I should have come on my own...if only we could have communicated with them, just talked to them a bit. It was such a marvellous opportunity for the meeting of two worlds.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Kennedy sighed as she climbed the stairs that would eventually lead them to the airlock.

“I knew I should have come on my own,” Cavor added sadly as he followed Kennedy towards the surface.

0=0=0=0

**The Surface of the Moon a little later.**

Back out on the surface again the two adventurers locked the airlock hatch behind them.

“Wait-up,” Kennedy said as she looked around.

Seeing what she wanted, she walked over to a boulder which was about Cavor size, picked it up and wedged it firmly in front of the airlock's hatch.

“That's not going to slow them do for long,” Cavor observed.

“It's not?” Kennedy replied belligerently, “Okay, you try and move it then.”

With a superior sniff, Cavor moved to the boulder, bent down and wrapped his arms around it and heaved. Straining and grunting Cavor eventually admitted that the boulder wouldn't move.

“You must have wedged it in so tightly that its jammed in there,” he explained more to himself than to Kennedy, “anyway its pointless, the moon-creatures must have other exits close by.”

“Whatever,” Kennedy sighed and rolled her eyes, “look we better get back to the spaceship, Willow's probably frantic with worry by now.”

As she led the way back to their craft, Kennedy started to think about what she'd just said. If Willow was frantic with worry wouldn't she have contacted them using magic by now? A horrible thought hit her and almost made her stumble; what if Willow's worries about her magic not working away from Earth were correct. Perhaps she hadn't contacted them because she couldn't! Within seconds of this thought hitting her, Kennedy had a much more frightening one; what if the moon-creatures had captured Willow? If the nasty little creatures had taken Willow prisoner, well if they had that was just their bad luck because she, Kennedy Scapone, would rain such destruction down on their horrid little heads that they'd wish they'd never been born or hatched or whatever.

Leaving the boulder field where Cavor had got stuck, behind them the two explorers bounced on until they got near the spot where they'd landed the spaceship. Coming to a halt, Kennedy held up her hand to signal a halt only to have Cavor bounce into her.

“Oh I'm most frightfully sorry,” Cavor said as he and Kennedy disentangled themselves after their little collision.

“Hey!” Kennedy pushed Cavor off her and then pointed ahead, “Isn't this where we parked the ship?”

“It's gone!” Cavor cried in panic.

“Look,” Kennedy pointed to the footprints that littered the area, “there are our footprints...”

“The controls!” Cavor cried, “She must have touched the controls.”

“Look,” Kennedy tried to keep calm, “even if she had, Willow wouldn't just fly away without us.”

Seeing Cavor bounce past her, Kennedy set off after the man. They both came to a halt where the spaceship had landed. They could see the indentations in the dust where the ship's landing feet had rested, but more frighteningly they could see what looked like the foot prints of what could only be a giant insect.

“Oh my goddess!” Kennedy cried her mind full of all the terrible and despicable things the moon-creatures were no doubt doing to Willow's defenceless and really sexy body. “The depraved bastards...”

“Something must have come and picked up the craft and taken it to the moon-creature's city,” Cavor pointed out.

“So, the little sick bastards have a city?” Kennedy turned to look at Cavor before turning back to follow the line of the tracks as they headed off across the rolling moonscape.

“It's a logical assumption to make,” Cavor pointed out, “come on Miss Scapone they've left an obvious trail we must follow it or we'll never get home!”

0=0=0=0

After following the trail for nearly half-an-hour, Kennedy and Cavor came to a huge hexagonally shaped metal door set into the valley wall, the tracks disappeared through the door. The door had a zigzag seam running from top to bottom, obviously where the two halves of the door connected. Walking up to the door, Kennedy examined it carefully. It appeared to be made out of some sort of bronze coloured metal. There were no inscriptions on the door and no obvious means of opening it, she could, however fit both her hands into the seem where the doors joined.

“Can you see any controls?” Kennedy asked Cavor who'd been searching the rock face either side of the door.

“No,” Cavor replied, “it looks like unless you've got some explosives on your person we're going to have to find another way in.”

“I wouldn't be so sure about that,” Kennedy said with a short laugh.

Putting her hands into the seem between the doors, she then placed her right foot against the seem and heaved. The door opened a good six inches but Kennedy was blown off her feet as a blast of air escaped from the chamber beyond.

“Don't worry,” Cavor said as he helped her to her feet again, “I expect its just the air left in the airlock escaping. When we try again there shouldn't be any left.”

“Unless its a very large airlock,” Kennedy pointed out.

“Yes there is that of course,” Cavor agreed, “well, we better be careful then.”

“Right,” Kennedy nodded.

This time they both took hold of the doors although Kennedy was confident she didn't actually need any help. Together they heaved and once more the doors started to open as the great wind escaped from the chamber beyond.

“Perhaps you were right Miss Scapone,” Cavor laughed, “Maybe it is a _very_ big airlock!”

They now had the airlock door open a good three feet, atmosphere and dust blew from the gap, but as they were expecting it now they weren't blown off their feet.

“You go through and hold the door for me,” Kennedy ordered.

Squeezing through the door, Cavor turned to hold the door open for Kennedy who followed him through as soon as he'd got a grip on the doors. Once they were both clear they let the door slide shut. As soon as the door closed the wind vanish and they were left in silence.

“My god!” gasped Cavor as he looked around to study the interior of the airlock which was in fact huge. “There's your reason why all the air was escaping,” he pointed to an inner set of doors that seemed to be jammed open, “the inner doors are out of operation...I wonder why they haven't been repaired?”

Following the scientist over to the inner doors, Kennedy had to admit that they looked jammed and from all the dust that had built up around them they appeared to have been jammed open for some time.

“Good grief,” Cavor mutter as the truth about the moon-creatures hit him, “This must be an incredibly old civilisation,” he explained, “so old in fact that they've lost the skills that they once possessed that allowed them to build this city.”

“You mean they're degenerating?” Kennedy asked as she wondered if it was safe to open her face plate; giving a shrug she cautiously opened her helmet a crack, when she didn't suffocate in the vacuum of space, she called, “Hey, Professor,” and tapped him on his shoulder; when he turned to look at her she gestured to her open helmet, “It's okay to open up.”

“Oh jolly good,” Cavor opened his helmet and breathed in the slightly humid and oddly scented air.

“So if what you say is right,” Kennedy mused, “that moon-monster with the spear was acting from instinct more than intelligent thought.”

“Well, yes,” Cavor admitted, “plus if they organise themselves along the same lines as terrestrial insects then I doubt if the ones we met had very much in the way of individual intelligence.”

“Good,” Kennedy nodded her head slowly.

“Good?” Cavor queried.

“It's always good to know your enemy's limitations and weakness',” Kennedy replied as she walked a little deeper into the chamber. “The place is an absolute honeycomb.”

Tunnels led off the main chamber in all directions, the tracks they'd been following were now surrounded by hundreds of sets of footprints probably left by the moon-creatures. They led off to a tunnel almost directly in front of them.

“This way,” Kennedy pointed to the trail and started to bounce slowly along it.

“Have you noticed anything odd, Miss Scapone?” Cavor asked as he bounced along behind her.

“The entire feckin' place is 'odd',” Kennedy replied.

“No I mean specifically,” Cavor insisted.

Stopping, Kennedy looked around, nothing jumped out at her as _particularly_ odd.

“No,” she replied simply.

“The light, Miss Scapone,” Cavor almost whispered as if he was frightened someone would overhear him, “Where's the light coming from? We're underground so it should be pitch-black in here.”

“Yeah,” Kennedy agreed slowly, “You're right,” she scanned the walls and roof for any sign of light emitting devices and saw none, “spooky.”

0=0=0=0

**Another Chamber near the Airlock.**

Starring at the monitors, Willow could see what looked like dozens of insect-like creatures clustered around the spaceship, she could also hear them climbing onto the craft and trying to open the airlock door. After Kennedy and Cavor had left her alone in the ship, she'd watched their progress on the ship's monitors and from the digital cameras fitted to their suits. She'd listened with amusement to Cavor's overexcited chatterings and Kennedy's attempts to calm him down; then she had lost contact with them. Although she'd called and called on the radio she'd not got any reply. Not panicking she'd told herself that as soon as the two explorers realised they'd lost contact with her they'd come back to find out what was wrong.

Time stretched and no one came back to find out why the radios had malfunctioned. Feeling more and more concerned, Willow prepared to cast a spell that would tell her where Kennedy and Cavor were. Just as she was about to say the rhyming couplet that would initiate the spell the spacecraft lurched to one side; thrown across the living quarters she hit her head on a locker door as it flew open.

When Willow woke-up she found the ship was rocking gently from side-to-side. Frantically staring at the monitors she saw that the craft had been put onto the back of what looked like a giant metal insect and they were going through a huge metal door set in the side of a mountain. Once inside the mountain, Willow found herself being carried along tunnels which had been hacked out of the moon-rock until she and the craft were deposited in an enormous chamber. It was then that the smaller and obviously organic insects had come and started to try and find their way in.

“Right,” Willow muttered as she opened an equipment locker and took out the big revolver Kennedy had brought along, “if that's the way you wanna play!”

Gun in hand she started to draw her magics around her, even so she wasn't sure whether magical and physical means would be enough to stop the insects. A clang of metal on metal told her that the moon-creatures had got the outer airlock door open; she could hear the creatures scramble into the airlock and start to work on the inner door, she also started to hear their weird chirruping calls. Watching nervously, she saw the inner door begin to open, immediately the sound of chirruping got louder as it sent a shiver of fear down her spine.

“Hold on!” Willow called to herself, “Just who the heck is the mega-witch 'round here?”

Moments later she'd vanished from the capsule only to reappear outside. Finding herself in a very large (and luckily air filled chamber), Willow saw hordes of insect-like moon-creatures clambering over the space ship.

“You get offa that spaceship you hear!” Willow yelled; suddenly becoming the centre of the universe for hundreds of the moon-creature's tiny minds, “Okay you can't say I didn't warn you...”

0=0=0=0


	8. Chapter 8

8.

**Inside the Moon.**

“What the hell was that!?” Cavor cried as the echoes of a loud explosion reverberated around the chamber.

“That's Willow,” Kennedy replied as she looked down a tunnel in the direction from which the sound appeared to be coming from.

“Willow?” Cavor turned to stare at Kennedy before enquiring, “You mean Miss Rosenberg blew something up? What sort of weapons did the pair of you bring Miss Scapone?”

“Oh that's not a weapon,” Kennedy smiled sweetly at the academic, “that's Willow...come on this way.”

Leading Professor Cavor towards the tunnel she was fairly sure would lead to Willow, Kennedy smiled; no doubt Willow was alive and kicking moon-creature butt! Of course that still meant that she needed to find Willow as soon as possible, but maybe the urgency wasn't as great as before. Bouncing gently along the tunnel so as not to hit their heads on the roof the two explorers soon came out into a chamber that was not only the size of two or three Olympic stadiums, but contained a forest of huge mushrooms which grew closely together leaving only a few pathways for them to walk along.

“Mushrooms!” Cavor cried in wonder.

“Maybe they're toadstools,” Kennedy suggested.

“What makes you think they're toadstools?” Cavor demanded, as far as he could see he was looking at mushrooms, large mushrooms true but mushrooms all the same.

“Because there's not _mush-room_ in here,” Kennedy punned with a girlish smile.

“Huh?” Cavor replied not getting the joke.

“Whatever,” Kennedy gave another unnoticed shrug and pointed to one of the pathways, “This way.”

They'd not gone more than a few dozen yards when the humans came to the top of a slight rise and were able to see over the tops of the mushrooms.

“What the feckin' hell is that?” Kennedy demanded as she pointed at the hundred foot long creature that was happily eating its way through a field of mushrooms.

“I don't know,” Cavor replied breathlessly as the monster centipede-like creature ate up more mushrooms, “Its probably harmless,” he said trying to reassure himself and Kennedy that they were in no danger, “A vegetarian, bred for food rather like a cow.”

“Yeah right,” Kennedy wasn't so easily reassured, “You know a Rhino's a vegetarian and I wouldn't call it harmless!”

“Well that's as maybe,” Cavor replied not liking having his theory disputed, “It shouldn't bother us if we don't bother it...”

“If that's a cow,” Kennedy muttered darkly, “I don't want to meet a bull!”

Right on cue a very loud roar came from behind the two human explorers. Turning quickly they saw a larger more angry version of the cow creature rear up on its rear sets of legs and loom over them. Its huge, deadly looking mandibles snicked together making a sound rather like a pair of scissors owned by a giant. Like most things on the moon the creature was grey except for its two, large, red, many faceted eyes.

“Run?” croaked Cavor as he backed away from the monster.

“Run,” agreed Kennedy as she started to bounce rapidly towards what she hoped was safety dragging a terrified Cavor in her wake.

The mushroom forest was so thick that Kennedy and Cavor had to stick to the paths. However this didn't trouble the monster which was chasing them. It easily smashed its way through the wood-like trunks of the mushrooms and was almost within snacking distance of the two humans when they burst out into a large clearing containing more of the crystalline structures they'd seen earlier in the day.

Towing Cavor behind her, Kennedy made a slayer strength bounce, they flew through the air to come to rest behind a particularly large and solid looking blue crystal.

“Harmless vegetarian, huh?” Kennedy observed.

“I thought....” Cavor was interrupted by an extra loud roar from the monster and Kennedy never found out what the professor had thought.

“You know what your trouble is?” Kennedy asked as she pulled Cavor deeper into the crystal outcrop, “You think too much!”

Catching sight of its prey's movement the monster centipede tried to smash its way through the crystals to get at these no doubt tasty morsels. However the crystals resisted the passage of the monster like the mushroom forest hadn't. Looking around Kennedy searched for an escape route; the crystals were growing next to the wall of the chamber and there appeared to be a moon-creature walkway about thirty feet above the level of the clearing. If they could get up to the walkway the monster centipede wouldn't be able to follow and they could get away.

Kennedy's thoughts were interrupted by the sound of crystal shattering as the monster began to smash a path towards them using its head. Bouncing over to the wall of the clearing, Kennedy considered jumping straight up. She had little doubt that she'd make it to the walkway what with the low gravity and her slayer strength, but Cavor wouldn't. For just a moment, Kennedy considered leaving Cavor behind; to be honest he was something of a liability and they didn't actually need him to pilot the spaceship back to Earth, Willow could do that.

Shaking her head, Kennedy told herself that wasn't the right thing to do, it wasn't 'The Slayer' thing to do, she was born to save people (unless they were some of her father's 'competitors') not leave them behind to be eaten by monstrous moon-centipedes. With a sigh she turned to the mass of crystal that grew from the wall of the chasm and started to climb. Stopping about twelve feet up she turned and held out her hand.

“Come on Cavor jump,” she cried, “I'll catch you and pull you up.”

Misjudging his jump, Cavor flew into the air and bounced off the chamber's wall. He floated gently to the ground several yards away from the base of the crystal. The centipede roared some more as it smashed its way through towards where Cavor lay. Looking from Cavor to the centipede, Kennedy knew Cavor would never get up to the walkway in time and the chances were they'd both be eaten as a result.

“RUN CAVOR! RUN!” Kennedy cried before turning and scrambling up the rest of the way to the walkway.

From her higher vantage point, Kennedy saw Cavor bounce erratically towards a narrow tunnel mouth and at least temporary safety. Unfortunately her own theory of being safe once she'd made it to the walkway proved to be wrong. The centipede seemed quite happy to rear up on its back legs lifting about seventy-five percent of its body off the ground and taking wild swipes at her with its sharp, double set of mandibles. The jagged edges of the mandibles snicked together above her head. As the monster drew back so it could look at her directly, Kennedy picked up some loose rocks and hurled them in anger and frustration at the beast.

Quickly realising that throwing rocks which bounced harmlessly off the creature's armoured hide was getting her nowhere, Kennedy looked around for some other means of escape. To her left the walkway led down to the crystal clearing. Above her she could see nothing but sheer cliff face. It looked like her only option was to continue on up the walkway and hope that the monster wouldn't knock her off the pathway and eat her.

0=0=0=0

Half bouncing and half running erratically from side to side, Cavor managed not to impale himself on the sharp looking outcrops of brightly coloured crystal. Turning as he stumbled towards the entrance of another tunnel, Cavor saw Kennedy throwing rocks at the monster.

“Brave girl...” he started to say just before he tripped over his own feet and fell slowly to the ground.

Getting a face full of moon-dust, Cavor coughed and spluttered as he slowly skidded across the surface of the cavern sending up sprays of slow motion dust while gradually grinding to a halt. Terrified that the monster might have seen his fall and would be coming after him, Cavor looked behind him only to see the creature still trying to get at Kennedy as she made her way further up the walkway.

Finally getting a grip of himself, Cavor carefully climbed to his feet, spitting out the last few grains of moon-dust he squared his shoulders and pushed off in the direction of the tunnel mouth. It only took him a couple of bounces to get to the opening. Again he paused at the tunnel mouth and turned to see how Kennedy was doing. From his present vantage point he could see nothing of his companion and only part of the monster-centipede. Sighing deeply, he turned to move off down the tunnel only to find himself facing half-a-dozen moon-creatures all of whom were clutching spears all of which were pointed at him.

“Alright, what do you want?” Cavor asked his voice trembling with fear.

The moon-creatures said nothing other than to chirrup at him and prod him with their spears.

“What do you want me to do?” Cavor cried in panic as he felt the spears cut into his suit but fortunately not into him. “No please don't, please!” Cavor begged as the moon-creatures started to herd him down the tunnel, “What do you want me to do!?”

0=0=0=0

Back at the walkway, Kennedy had found herself a small cave to hide in. However this didn't help much as the centipede monster was either too stupid or too determined to give up on catching her. As she hid in the cave, which wasn't much bigger than a couple of telephone boxes, the monster started to ram the rock face outside with its head. Each time it hit it would dislodge loose bits of rock that would fall slowly to bounce off Kennedy's helmet before completing its journey to the floor. It didn't take a civil engineer to tell her that unless something happened to distract the monster that very soon it would have brought down enough of the rock face to make her cave useless as a hiding place.

Once again, as if on cue, something happened; this time it was jagged lines of green energy arcing from somewhere out of Kennedy's sight to hit the centipede near it head. The monster roared loudly, this time with pain as it fell back from the cliff and started to writhe in agony destroying the crystal outcrops as it did so. More lightning-like green flashes connected with the creature drawing more and louder screams of pain from it as it thrashed about hurling chunks of crystal about the chamber as it did so. Unable to resist, Kennedy crept from her hiding place and looked out into the chamber. 

Following the lines of green energy back to their source, she saw a group of three moon-creatures huddled around some sort of gun that projected the green energy at the centipede. Looking a little further off she saw more moon-creatures with another weapon that flashed greenly each time it was fired.

By this time the giant centipede was in the last stages of its death throws, it lay on the floor of the chamber squirming weakly as the green energy played over its body. Even when it had stopped moving or making any sound the moon-creatures directed several more blasts at the creature before they were sure it was dead. In the silence that followed, Kennedy's sensitive ears easily picked out the sound of chirruping coming from all around the chamber. Watching cautiously from her hiding place, she at first thought that the walls and floor of the chamber had come alive. Quickly she realised that there were in fact hundreds of grey moon-creatures moving toward the carcass of the dead centipede. A lot of the moon-creatures were carrying the halbard-like spears that she'd encountered earlier.

The moon-creatures swarmed over the carcass quickly butchering it and carrying off the meat. In what felt like only a few minutes the moon-creatures had stripped the centipede of its flesh leaving behind only its bones and the blood stained floor. Coming out of her hiding place, Kennedy found herself completely alone. It was time, she told herself, to find Willow, the spaceship and possibly Cavor and get out of here; she'd decided that moon exploration was definitely not all it was cracked up to be!

0=0=0=0

**Another Chamber not too far away.**

Sitting disconsolately in the large glass cell the moon-creatures had put her in, Willow decided that things hadn't gone quite as well as she'd hoped they would. Sure she'd teleported herself out of Cavor's spaceship and yes she'd directed a blast of magic at the creatures that were all over the craft, but from there it had all gone wrong. Instead of sweeping the nasty little insect-like creatures off the ship's hull her magic had gone all kerfluie and haywire and not how she'd hoped it would go at all. 

Okay yes a few moon-creatures had been knocked from their places on the hull, but the magical energy she'd directed at them should have sent them all flying. After realising that something had gone wrong she'd lifted the revolver in both her hands (just like Kennedy had taught her) and she'd been about to open fire when she'd found herself enveloped in some sort of green energy field. It was like being hit by a bolt of electricity.

Her hair had stood up on end and she'd dropped the revolver as her body jerked about like a rabbit on crystal-meth. Even through the pain and disorientation she could feel her magic drain away from her body. By the time the moon-creatures switched off their green-energy-projector, Willow was already unconscious and once released she fell in a heap onto the ground. When she woke up she'd found herself in this glass cell with one of the moon-creatures staring in at her. Almost immediately, Willow noticed that the creature looking at her was different to the ones that had been climbing over the spaceship. This one was maybe a foot taller that the rest and had a bigger head, it also seemed to radiate an air of malignant menace which made her shiver a little. After shouting at the creature to let her out and getting no reply, Willow looked around her cell. It was bare of any decoration or creature comforts, it didn't even appear to have a door. Going back to the wall closest to where the moon-creature stood staring at her, Willow used the heel of her boot to bang on the glass.

“Let me outta here!” Willow called angrily as she hit the glass with her boot, “Do you hear me?”

Obviously not, because the moon-creature just stood there observing her antics with inhuman patience.

“Stop staring at me like I’m some sorta exhibit in a museum,” Willow demanded, she turned her head slightly and saw another big-headed moon-creature standing by a large, spiky, yellow crystal holding her other boot in its hand, “HEY!” Willow cried, “You give that back!”

“HEY! You give that back!” 

Willow looked up and around trying to see where the high-pitched copy of her voice was coming from.

“Ah, I get it,” Willow smiled and relaxed a little, “you're trying to learn my language.”

“Ah, I get it, you're trying to learn my language.” 

This time the words were repeated back to her almost perfectly. Just as Willow was wondering how long this would go on for she heard a low rumbling. Looking over to her left she saw a metal door open and Professor Cavor being herded into the chamber by a horde of the smaller moon-creatures who were each armed with a spear. A worrying thought suddenly hit Willow.

“Golly,” she gasped, “I hope they don't suddenly take an interest in human anatomy.”

0=0=0=0


	9. Chapter 9

9.

**Inside the Moon.**

“Professor Cavor!” Willow cried happy to see another human face; a section of glass wall slid open to allow the professor to enter Willow's cell. “What happened to you?” 

The professor looked in a sorry condition, his space suit had a lot of tears in it, his face was dirty and he appeared to have lost his helmet.

“I got separated from Miss Scapone and captured,” Cavor admitted weakly as he sank slowly to the floor, his back against the glass wall.

“KENNEDY!” Willow's hands flew to her mouth as she cried out her lovers name, “Where is she?” Willow demanded as the words caught in her throat, “She's not...?”

“No,” Cavor shook his head, “the last I saw of her she was alright,” he didn't mention however that the last time he'd seen her she was being chased by a giant, carnivorous, centipede.

“So, what happened?” Willow sank to the floor opposite Cavor.

Taking a few minutes, Professor Cavor explained what had happened to Kennedy and himself since they'd both left the spaceship and Willow behind. When Cavor had stopped speaking, Willow took the opportunity to catch Cavor up on her own adventures.

“So,” Willow sighed heavily, “what are we going to do?” she looked nervously through the glass at the big-headed moon-creatures who were still looking in at them, “And what do you think they,” she indicated the moon-creatures, “want to do with us?”

“Oh I expect they're as curious about us as we are about them,” Cavor said as he tried to calm what he misread as Willow's fears, “Whatever happens we must keep trying to communicate with them.”

“Even as they eat us?” Willow had already marked the moon-creatures down for annihilation, they were obviously evil; after all hadn't they stolen her boot and locked her up? “Anyway they've got some sort of translation device, they can understand us and talk to us if they want.”

“They have?” Cavor's face lit up, “Why that's splendid!” He turned away from Willow and waved at the moon-creature that was doing something to the big yellow control crystal, “Man,” he called through the glass and gestured to himself.

“And woman,” Willow added.

“What?” Cavor looked at her totally baffled.

“Man and woman,” Willow explained.

“My dear Miss Rosenberg,” Cavor replied condescendingly, “when I use the term 'man' I mean 'mankind'.”

“Whatever,” Willow crossed her arms over her chest and rolled her eyes.

“Now, where was I?” Cavor muttered.

“Male, chauvinist-pig central,” Willow muttered darkly.

“Oh yes,” Cavor didn't seem to have heard Willow's comment as he kept trying to communicate with the moon-creature. “Man,” again he gestured to himself, “we come from Earth...many hundreds of thousands of miles away...”

“Hey look,” Willow pointed out, “y'know words like 'Earth' and 'many hundreds of thousands' probably mean nothing to these guys...sheesh!”

The moon-creature stared at them blankly with its big faceted eyes and said nothing.

“There,” Willow huffed, “I told you so.”

“Maybe you're right,” Cavor slumped against the wall once more, “it doesn't mean a thing to them, nothing at all.”

“ _Man_ ,” the moon-creature spoke as if to prove Cavor wrong.

“YES!” Cavor stood up and jumped for joy, forgetting about the low gravity and nearly hit his head on the roof of the cell. “Man!” Cavor laughed as he slowly floated back down to the floor, he turned to Willow in high excitement, “Did you hear that?”

“Hard not to,” Willow replied unimpressed, so far the moon-creatures had said nothing new, they'd just repeated their own words back to them.

“They're trying to communicate with us...” Cavor laughed and almost jumped up and down again but this time he remembered about the gravity and contented himself with slapping Willow on her back instead. “It's absolutely...Man, man!” again Cavor gestured to himself, “From hundreds of thousands of miles away.”

“Yeah, I think they've got the idea now,” Willow pointed out; she couldn't remember any of her professors at collage getting this excited.

“ _Man, from Earth_ ,” the moon-creature said.

“Well that told me,” Willow muttered having had her pet theory shot down in flames, “perhaps they aren't just repeating words back to us.”

“You see,” Cavor said excitedly, “They understand, they're not repeating what I say.”

“Yeah,” Willow nodded, “I get it, okay?”

“That's splendid,” Cavor clapped his hands.

“What is?” Willow asked, “Them talking or me understanding the situation, coz I've gotta say, I was right there with you.”

“ _It's absolutely splendid_ ,” said the moon-creature sounding just a little like a Dalek.

“YES!” Cavor was once again bouncing off the ceiling.

Rolling her eyes again, Willow couldn't help feeling how un-British Cavor was acting, he must obviously be some sort of over-excitable foreigner. Willow paused in mid-thought and shivered slightly at the thought that she must be getting more British, she gaped as she realised she already drank gallons of tea and ate scones.

It was at more or less this point, and for no good reason that Willow could see, that the moon-creatures opened the door to their cell and let them out. The moon-creature who'd been trying to communicate suddenly left the room leaving them alone.

“Well that's weird,” Willow whispered, “the bad guys don't normally just let you go once they've got you in their clutches.”

“Now we can communicate, they probably don't see us as a threat,” Cavor replied airily.

“Well one thing's for sure,” Willow walked towards the door opposite the door that Cavor had entered by, “without spacesuits or our spaceship we're not leaving here in a hurry...oh!” Willow gasped, “The spaceship!?”

“Yes I expect we should try and find it,” Cavor came to join Willow by the door.

“Darn tootin' mister,” Willow agreed.

“Come on,” Cavor said with an expression on his face like a games-geek who'd been accidentally locked in a games arcade with all the machines set on 'free play', “lets see what's through here.”

“Okay,” Willow looked up at the door, “how do we open it?”

“Erm,” Cavor looked around for some controls, “there doesn't appear to be anyway of opening it.”

Willow spent a futile few minutes helping Cavor look.

“Darn it,” Willow let her shoulders slump, “stopped before we've even started.” It was just then that she thought of something, “What the hell?” she said as she gestured at the door, “Open Sesame!”

The door obediently slid open.

“Cool!” Willow looked up at the opening door and then at her hand, perhaps her magic was coming back.

“How'd you do that?” Cavor wanted to know, but his questions were soon forgotten at the sight of what lay beyond the door.

Cavor had thought that the chamber containing the mushroom forest was big, but that was just an annex to what lay before him. Stretching as far as the eye could see, which was a pretty long way all things considered, the cavern disappeared into darkness. The chamber was impressive but not as impressive as what it held. Looking down into the darkness below the platform where they stood, Cavor could see great glass-like cylinders rise up out of the black and up to the roof of the chamber where the cylinders were lost in a jumble of pipes. Strange coloured liquid boiled and writhed in these massive cylinders producing a low frequency rumbling that made his chest vibrate.

“Golly,” Willow said in a very small voice from Cavor's side, “the pressure on the walls of those cylinders must be astronomical.”

“Hmmm? What?” Cavor tore his eyes away from the unearthly machinery and looked at Willow, “Indeed...” he agreed after a moment, “...it's probably some sort of machine for the manufacture of oxygen...” his voice tailed off for a moment. “Lets see what's down here,” Cavor gestured to a walk way that led around the wall of the chamber.

Hardly being able to drag her eyes off the wonders of the lunar underworld, Willow found herself being led along the walkway and into another chamber. This chamber was big but only 'normal' big, it did however contain yet another wonder.

“Good grief!” Cavor gasped.

“Gotta say I've never seen one that size before,” Willow agreed.

“It's huge!” Cavor stared in wonderment at the vast crystal that spun slowly and silently in some sort of frictionless mounting.

Above them light poured in from one of the shafts with a lens like the one Cavor and Kennedy had found on the surface. The almost solid looking beam of warm, yellow light struck the crystal and appeared to be what was making it spin.

“Perhaps its some sort of power generation device,” Willow suggested.

“Yes, you could be right,” Cavor nodded enthusiastically, “a solar powered generator.”

“If only we could get examples of this technology back to Earth,” Willow sighed wistfully.

“Yes, yes,” Cavor agreed as he imagined all the money he could make selling off this technology to the highest bidder.

“Lets see what's through this door,” Willow suggested as she pointed to yet another door.

Once again the door, like all the others they'd come to, seemed reluctant to open, so once again Willow gestured at the door.

“Abracadabra!” Willow called and the door slid open obediently as she added to herself, “I'm such a cool witch.”

Walking through the doorway, Willow and Cavor found themselves on a platform overlooking what Willow could only describe as a workshop. Right there in the middle of the workshop was their spaceship, and climbing over the spaceship were dozens of the smaller moon-creatures who appeared to be taking the craft apart.

“My god!” Cavor cried out in anguish, “They're taking the sphere apart!”

“We've gotta stop them or we'll never get home,” Willow cried, “I wish Kennie was here.”

“Why?” Cavor looked at Willow, “What could she do about anything.”

“Well,” Willow sighed, “for one thing, she'd kick their skinny, grey butts all the way to Mars.”

“Ha!” Cavor laughed not believing a word of it, he sobered quickly however as more pieces of spaceship were carted off by the moon-creatures, “Come on we better stop them, hurry!”

Taking hold of Willow's hand, not that she wanted her hand taking hold of, Cavor just seemed to do it as if it was the most natural thing in the world (or Moon) to do. He led the way down some more steps and on into the workshop. The worker moon-creatures didn't pay them any attention as they busily de-constructed the spacecraft.

“You've no right to do this,” Cavor called out desperately; the moon-creatures paid him no heed what-so-ever, “Leave it alone, it doesn't belong to you!”

Still the moon-creatures went about their work as if Cavor had never spoken.

“Okay,” Willow stepped forward and figuratively rolled up her sleeves, “time for some hocus pocus...”

“I say what's that?” Cavor called out before Willow could let rip with any magic.

Turning to see what Cavor was talking about Willow saw a much smaller chamber off the main one. This chamber held several of the big-headed moon-creatures who were all standing around a large table that had strange symbols scrolling across its surface; some sort of computer terminal, Willow thought. Forgoing the pleasure of reducing the moon-creatures to a sticky red paste, Willow followed Cavor into the smaller chamber. The moon-creatures did nothing to try and stop them, in fact they acted as if they weren't there at all. Looking down at the table and its weird symbols all the colour drained from Cavor's face.

“What's wrong, Professor?” Willow asked as she caught hold of Cavor's arm and steadied him as he staggered away from the table a little.

“My god!” Cavor gasped, “Do you know what that is, Miss Rosenberg?” Cavor pointed at the symbols but didn't wait for Willow's reply. “Those are the plans for my gravitic motors...they must have removed one and taken it apart.”

“ _We have tried to duplicate machine taken from sphere_ ,” announced one of the big-head moon-creatures, “ _but we are unable to make work. You must show us how it works._ ”

“Well,” Cavor began as he turned to the creature who'd spoken, “it's called a...”

“Professor!” Willow said from between clenched teeth as she kicked Cavor in the ankle with her booted foot, “I don't think you should tell them anything.”

“OW!” Cavor cried in pain as he hopped about on one foot while he clutched at his injured ankle.

“I don't think we should tell you anything about anything,” Willow pointed out forcefully, “until we've decided what you'll give us in exchange for Professor Cavor's help.”

“Exchange?” Cavor stopped hopping about and stood up straight to look at Willow mystified by what she'd just said.

“ _Exchange_?” the moon-creature said slowly; after a moment the moon-creature sort of shrugged, “ _No more questions...for now_ ” it added menacingly.

“For now?” Cavor repeated back to the creature, it seemed to be getting through to him that maybe, just maybe, the moon-creatures weren't as nice as he'd thought they were.

Once again the moon-creatures appeared to dismiss the two humans from their minds. Turning away from Willow and Cavor they walked over to another part of the chamber were about a dozen big-head moon-creature shapes stood in a long line. The shapes appeared to be covered in what looked like heavy spider web. Standing still the three creatures that had been talking to the humans let themselves be covered in web.

“They must be hibernating until they're needed again,” observed Cavor.

“Well,” Willow smiled, “you've got to admit its a neat way of dealing with unemployment.”

“Entirely reasonable I suppose,” Cavor looked once again at the computer table.

“They'll probably treat us the same way if they find they've no further use for us,” Willow pointed out with a shiver.

“What a ghastly thought,” Cavor muttered.

0=0=0=0


	10. Chapter 10

10.

**Inside the Moon.**

Prizing open the door just wide enough so she could get her head and shoulders through, Kennedy looked out onto the platform in front of her, there were no moon-creatures in view. Slipping through the door she walked further out onto the platform. For the last couple of hours, after her run in with the giant centipede, she'd been wandering the tunnels and chambers of the moon-creature city looking for Willow and Cavor. So far all she'd managed to do was not get captured by the moon-creatures and get just a little more lost than she had been before.

Walking over to the edge of the platform she looked down into the chamber below. Her heart jumped with relief when she saw the spacecraft standing in what looked like a huge workshop, next it fell when she saw the moon-creatures taking her only means of getting home apart. Looking left and right, Kennedy searched for a way down to the workshop, her only thought at that moment was to stop the moon-creatures damaging the craft in some way as to prevent Willow and herself from repairing it. The thought that she might not find Willow never entered her mind, she'd find Willow if she had to wander these chambers forever. However, just now it was more important to stop the moon-creatures from damaging the space ship beyond repair.

Seeing a flight of stairs leading down to the workshop, Kennedy hurried over to them and quickly found herself on the same level as the workshop. Hiding behind a great stone pillar she watched the moon-creatures work. The little creatures worked in a determined way as they passed back and forth across the workshop floor. There were far too many of them for her to fight; yes she could easily kill the ones near her but what next? The moon-creatures would only call for help and thousands of the little monsters would soon fill the chamber. Kennedy knew that she was good, but she wasn't _that_ good, as Stalin was so fond of saying; quantity had a quality all of its own. Just as Kennedy was thinking of going back the way she'd come, she noticed that the light levels were slowly dropping. As it got darker the moon-creatures appeared to be moving more slowly.

“Weird,” Kennedy said as she watched the creatures move slower and slower until they finally just stopped, “Now that's really weird.”

Stepping out from her hiding place she walked over to the closest group of moon-creatures, they appeared to be frozen in time. Looking up and around, Kennedy realised that the moon-creatures must be activated by light in some way. The light levels in the cavern were really low now, not so much as it was pitch dark, but low enough for her slayer enhanced eyes to register the difference, she guessed that it was about as dark as a bright star lit night on Earth. Moving cautiously over to where two moon-creatures stood frozen as they carried a box of supplies from the spaceship to...well, Kennedy didn't know where, she reached out and yanked the box from the creature's hands. There was no reaction, next she snapped the neck of first one creature and then the other; there was still no reaction, the moon-creatures didn't even fall over.

“Interesting,” Kennedy mused as she moved away from the two dead creatures.

Noticing another smaller chamber just off the main one, Kennedy headed over to it and looked inside. Here she could see a large table with a glass-like surface and several outcrops of crystal that gave the impression that they might be machines or possibly some sort of interface for a computer. Shrugging, she walked further into the chamber and started when she noticed the moon-creature-like shapes over on one side of the room covered in some sort of web. Walking quickly over to the shapes, she tore at some of the web, as she did so she revealed the bodies of moon-creatures, but these ones were bigger than any she'd seen before.

“Leaders?” she asked herself, “Brain bugs perhaps?”

Just as she was about to turn away and go back outside and into the workshop again she noticed something hidden behind where the big bugs stood. Running over she found a pile of equipment taken from the craft. Everything here seemed to be from the interior of the craft. Searching rapidly through the pile of ration boxes and clothes, Kennedy quickly found what she was looking for. Holding up the short sword she'd packed, was it really forty-eight hours earlier, she held it up in front of her face and grinned. It was just about now when something touched her on the shoulder. Turning with inhuman speed she nearly pushed her sword right through Cavor's head.

“AAAAAAAGH!” screamed Cavor in his terror as he came face to face with imminent death.

“Cavor!” Kennedy snapped as she relaxed her grip on the professor's throat and lowered her sword.

“Please Miss Scapone!” Cavor wailed in fear for his life, “Put that thing away there's no need for...swords?”

“I'm sorry, Professor,” Kennedy lowered her weapon, “but I've not got your boundless confidence in the good-will of these moon-creature things.”

“You don't try to understand them,” Cavor started to explain, “They're just different...”

“Oh,” Kennedy sighed heavily as she lost patience with the scientist, “we're wasting time, I've got to find Willow and get out of here.”

“Oh, Miss Rosenberg,” Cavor replied, “she's alright I just left her...”

“You know where she is?” Kennedy demanded.

“Yes,” Cavor nodded.

“And you didn't think I might want to know this?” Kennedy was getting really pissed at the academic, “For feck's sake tell me where she is so we can repair the ship and get out of here!”

“No, not yet, not yet,” Cavor gestured for Kennedy to slow down and let him speak.

“What do you mean, 'not yet'?” by now Kennedy really, really wanted to hit Cavor.

“Look, I want time...” Cavor began but was soon interrupted by Kennedy as she advanced menacingly on the little man.

“Look, dickwad,” Kennedy snarled, “I want to know where Willow is and I want to know NOW!”

“I want...” Cavor tried to speak again, but stopped when Kennedy pricked his throat with the tip of her sword.

“Tell me where Willow is right now or I'll freaking take your head right off,” she announced with quiet menace, “comprendie?”

“No, Miss Scapone, don't spoil it,” Cavor pleaded, “I want to communicate with them....AAAGH!”

Cavor found himself being pushed roughly up against the cavern wall.

“For the last time,” Kennedy spoke into Cavor's face, “where's Willow?”

“Give me time...” Cavor begged.

“Time for what....?” Kennedy was just about to decapitate the professor and look for Willow without his help when she noticed that the light levels were going back to normal. “What's happening?”

“I think there was an eclipse,” now free of Kennedy's grasp, Cavor rubbed his throat, “I think the moon-creatures go to sleep or something when there's no sunlight to power their city.”

“Yeah, very interesting,” Kennedy said with heavy sarcasm as she moved away from the professor, all thoughts of killing him put on hold...for now.

Once again the moon-creatures were starting to move about, their activity increasing as the light levels rose.

“You'd better get away,” Cavor's voice came from behind her.

Hefting the sword in her hand, Kennedy was, for a moment, at a loss as to what to do for the best. It seemed obvious to her that Cavor wasn't going to be of much help. He seemed more interested in communicating with the moon-creatures than on getting home. Deep down inside her, Kennedy just knew that the moon-creatures were not to be trusted. Her inner slayer was telling her to kill, rend and destroy. Apart from the fact that the moon-creatures were alien they were just too _alien_. Somehow she knew they couldn't be trusted, that they'd do _something_ evil if she didn't stop them. But, she couldn't stop them by herself there were far too many of them.

No, if she was going to prevent whatever evil plans that she felt sure these creatures were hatching, she'd need help and the closest help to hand which could well and truly stop the little moon monsters was Willow. Plus there was also the thing about loving Willow that had to be taken into account. Two very good reasons not to be caught by the moon-creatures and to find Willow. Turning away from Cavor, Kennedy strode off into the dim recesses of the cavern, a slayer with a mission.

0=0=0=0

Watching the strange young woman go Cavor walked out into the workshop again and was immediately surrounded by a crowd of moon-creatures. They hustled him away from the sphere and away from the workshop and down another tunnel. After a short walk, Cavor found himself in another huge chamber, only this one was different to the others he'd been in. For a start this one was simply packed with moon-creatures, there appeared to be thousands of them in a great seething grey mass spread across the floor of the chamber.

But the most impressive thing about this chamber was the great wall, much like the front of an ancient Egyptian temple, that had been built at one end of the chamber. He saw the great flight of stairs that led up to a large metal door in the 'temple's' wall. Everything was so big, Cavor thought as he was pushed out into the chamber by the moon-creatures behind him. If only he could have seen this civilization when it was at its height instead of the degenerated version he was seeing now; what wonders might he not have discovered.

As he walked towards the great sweeping stair case, the moon-creatures opened a path before him and closed it again as he passed preventing him from turning back. Now he was at the foot of the stairs he looked up at the door seemingly so far away. Shrugging to himself he started up the stairs towards who knew what?

0=0=0=0

Hiding behind a crystal outcrop, Kennedy watched as Cavor was led through the crowd of moon-creatures towards the 'temple'. Watching as Cavor started up the stairs, she realised that if there was any moon-creature 'royalty' they'd be behind that door. If she couldn't find any way of stopping the creatures from doing whatever it was they had planned, she'd have to go through that door and take on whatever she found behind it. But that was for later...maybe. Turning she started to make her way back towards the workshop, something was telling her that if Willow was anywhere she'd be there.

0=0=0=0

“You put that back!” Willow cried, “I'm warning you,” she added before sending a small magical bolt of energy at the two moon-creatures that were trying to remove some of the sphere's protective shielding.

The bolt of magical energy might have been low power, but it reduced the moon-creatures to two small smouldering piles of ash.

“Ooops,” Willow looked at her fingers in surprise, she'd really not intended to kill, but the influence of the moon was playing havoc with her magic.

Reacting to the death of their comrades several more moon-creatures advanced on Willow in an attempt to capture her. Purple bolts of magic flew out from Willow's hands as she defended herself. Moon-creatures fell all around her as they were reduced to smoky ashes. Finding herself cackling with glee at all the destruction she was causing, Willow got hold of herself and fought down the black-magic that always threatened to escape from just below the surface of her mind. Stopping herself from striking out again she saw that she'd fought off the moon-creatuires and the last few survivors were in full retreat.

“Golly,” Willow gasped as she once again looked at her slightly scorched fingers in wonder; she couldn't help feeling that it had been fun, empowering even, to have the creatures flee before her in terror. “This is what Buffy and Kennedy must feel like after a good slay,” she told herself.

“Willow!” Kennedy called from the safety of a rock pillar.

“Kennie!?” Willow called back gladder than she'd ever been to hear her lover's voice.

“You okay, honey?” Kennedy asked as she came out of hiding and bounced gently over to where Willow stood.

“I am now you're here,” Willow threw herself into Kennedy's arms and nearly knocked them both to the floor in the low lunar gravity.

“What's going on?” they asked each other at the same time.

After spending five minutes catching up, Kennedy looked around at all the pieces of space craft that littered the chamber floor.

“How bad is it?” she asked gesturing to all the equipment that the moon-creatures had removed from the ship.

“From what I can see,” Willow joined Kennedy in looking down at the scattered pieces of spaceship, “it's not as bad as it looks.”

“It isn't?” Kennedy's tone said that it looked a lot worse than it did.

“Look,” Willow bounced over to where a piece of control panel lay, she picked it up, “all the control units are modular, all we have to do is put them back in their proper places.”

“What about the engines and stuff like that?” Kennedy asked only marginally less worried than she had been just five seconds before.

“Well, I've not done a full inspection yet,” she grinned, “but the moon-creatures couldn't get the inspection hatches off the really important stuff, so nothings been removed or damaged that we can't put right.”

“That was lucky,” Kennedy couldn't quite believe their good fortune.

“Yeah it was wasn't it?” Willow gestured towards the ship, “it looks like all we have to do is put everything back where it belongs. Power up the motors and fly outta here!”

“Cool,” Kennedy went and rested her sword against one of the ship's landing legs, “we'd better get started, then I'll go rescue Cavor and then we can go home and warn everyone.”

“Warn everyone?” Willow asked uncertainly, “Warn everyone about what?”

“Oh you know, the usual,” Kennedy sighed sadly, “evil moon-creatures with dreams of world domination.”

“You think?” Willow raised an eyebrow.

“Uh-huh,” Kennedy nodded.

“Same old, same old, huh?” Willow headed for the ladder leading up into the capsule and muttered, “No rest for the witch...”

“Or slayer,” Kennedy added.

0=0=0=0

After climbing to the top of the stairs, Cavor stood for a moment in front of the big metal doors. After a few more seconds the doors rumbled open to reveal another long stairway that stretched off up towards a distant glowing ball of blue energy.

“More bloody stairs,” Cavor muttered as he trudged towards the energy ball in the distance.

0=0=0=0


	11. Chapter 11

11.

**Still inside the Moon.**

Walking up the great, wide flights of stairs, Cavor looked around in wonder. Once again the chamber was huge, the ancient moon-creatures who'd built everything didn't seem to have understood the concept of 'small'. The stairway was perhaps twenty or thirty yards wide and appeared to go up forever. Although the stairs must have been built uncounted eons ago they showed no sign of ware or accumulated damage. On either side of the stairway were great outcrops of the multi-coloured crystals the same type of crystals that grew through-out the moon-creature city. Behind the crystals and looking between them were hundreds perhaps thousands of the smaller moon-creature workers.

Climbing the last long flight of stairs towards the glowing ball of blue energy, Cavor paused in his assent and looked upwards. Once again there was no sign of lights, how the moon-creatures lit their chambers as bright as an Earth day was beyond him. Letting his eyes drift back to the energy ball that sat like a throne at the top of the stairs, Cavor could see the different hues of blue swirl across its surface while it pulsed like the very heart of a great animal or indeed the city. By the time he'd reached the platform where the blue ball glowed, Cavor was out of breath and his heart was racing.

“First of Earth-men,” came a strange breathless voice, “welcome to Mihegszig.”

“Mihegszig?” Cavor repeated before realising that the word must be the moon-creature name for the moon.

“I am here before you,” the voice came from the glowing blue globe.

As he turned to look at the globe, Cavor was shocked to see a figure appear inside the sphere, it was another moon-creature, but this one had a head even larger than the 'scientist' moon-creatures he'd spoken to earlier. The moon-creature 'King', as Cavor thought of the creature, reminded him of something and it took him a moment to remember what.

“Of course,” Cavor said softly as childhood memories flooded back into his mind; the 'King' reminded him of the Mekon, the evil bad-guy from the Dan Dare stories in the Eagle comic.

“Your Earth is the centre of our orbit,” explained the 'King', “tell us of its life, how it differs from ours.”

“Well, I don't know where to begin,” Cavor began; he thought for a moment and took a deep breath, “Man,” Cavor pointed to himself, “lives on the surface of Earth in protective structures.” Again Cavor paused as he tried to get his thoughts into order to properly explain what he wanted to say, “Not unlike your underground chambers but on the outside. We call them cities, towns...”

“That would explain the areas of light on the Earth's surface when its night side is facing us,” agreed the King in his dry whispery voice. “Does not the sun blind you living on the surface?”

“No,” Cavor shook his head, “no, you see we've evolved something called an iris that protects the eye.”

“Come closer,” ordered the King, “I wish to see.”

Obediently Cavor walked towards the globe only to have a bright light shone into his eyes.

“AAAGH!” he cried more in surprise than pain, “Please stop, that hurts.”

The light went out and Cavor found himself standing close to the globe and able to see inside it quite clearly. He could see no controls or emitters that would explain how the globe worked; his thoughts were interrupted by the King's next words

0=0=0=0

**Meanwhile back at the workshop.**

Passing control units and supplies up to Willow who was hanging half out of the airlock, Kennedy paused for a moment.

“Will,” the dark haired girl called softly, “do you think we might be wrong about the moon-creatures?” 

“Wrong?” Willow frowned, “What do you mean wrong?”

“You know,” Kennedy shrugged uncertainly, “that they might not actually be evil, that it could just be us just thinking they're evil,” she finished passing the box of packed meals up to Willow, “You know, we're so used to seeing evil that we might be seeing it when its not there.”

“Oh, I get it,” Willow paused for a moment thinking about what her girlfriend was suggesting. “What are your slayer instincts telling you?”

“Weeeeell...” Kennedy screwed up her face in indecision, “...they're telling me that they're different and they can't be trusted and...”

“You're worried that you want to destroy them all just because they are different, right?” Willow asked.

“Uh-huh, something like that,” Kennedy nodded.

“Well don't worry,” Willow smiled, “my on-board 'evil detector' is telling me these things are evil and need to be destroyed.”

“Wow,” Kennedy smiled with relief, “just for a moment there I thought I was going to be like Buffy and all her soul searching that she does before she goes out and kills whatever.”

“Buffy's soul-searching is one of her best features,” Willow pouted.

“It is?” Kennedy replied surprised, “I thought it was just something that would get her killed one day...”

“Is there much gear left out there?” Willow asked changing the subject.

“No this is about it,” Kennedy reassured her, “do you think you'll be able to get this thing to fly again?”

“Yeah, no problemo, honey,” Willow called as she crawled backwards into the capsule, “like I say, its all modular and I just have to screw the right units into the right holes.”

“How long?” Kennedy asked as she jumped slowly from the ladder to the surface.

“Thirty, maybe forty-five minutes,” Willow guessed, “I mean we only really need the flight controls connected up to the engines to get us out of here.”

“Okay, lets call it an hour to be safe,” Kennedy pondered what she had to do, she picked up the sword that she'd left lying close to hand. “I'm going back to find Cavor.”

“To do what?” Willow asked, her head sticking out from the hatch again.

“Whatever needs to be done,” Kennedy told her, “I'll try to be back here no earlier than forty-five minutes after I leave so you better get this thing flying...” Kennedy took a deep breath, “...and if I'm not back in an hour I won't be coming back...”

“No, baby!” Willow cried, “You'll be back, say you'll come back...”

“Will,” Kennedy sighed sadly, “you know there's always a chance I won't come back...if the worst happens don't go all Darth-Willow. Get home and warn Buffy and the others, okay?”

“Okay,” Willow replied miserably.

“Promise?”

“Yeah, I promise.”

0=0=0=0

**Back at the Audience Chamber.**

“...you say men cling to different tongues and outmoded beliefs?” the King sounded truly puzzled,  
“is there no one ruler?”

“No,” Cavor shook his head as he paced up and down in front of the 'throne', “Every so often some tinpot despot tries, but up to now no ones succeeded for more than a generation or two.”

“Does this not lead to confusion?” the King wanted to know.

“Yes it does,” Cavor replied earnestly, “and worse...starvation, hostility, even war...”

“Tell me of war,” the King leaned towards Cavor not wishing to miss a single word.

“Tell you of war?” Gasped Cavor, “What can I say...” he thought for a moment before saying, “it usually starts with a whacking great explosion...”

0=0=0=0

Peering between two great crystal columns, Kennedy watched as Cavor spilled his guts to the weird, extra, big-headed moon-creature in the glowy ball. Before leaving Willow she'd stripped off her space suit and changed back into her normal clothes. She'd reasoned that as she'd lost her helmet somewhere the space suit was useless, plus her normal clothes were much better to fight in. Hefting the sword in her hand, Kennedy glanced impatiently at her watch. There was still twenty minutes or so to go before Willow would have a chance of getting the sphere near ready to fly. For the time being she'd have to just sit here and wait until it was time for her to act.

0=0=0=0

“...and yet to fight in a war is considered an honour,” Cavor explained as he sat on the floor in front of the King, “It's difficult to explain, but men who are killed in battle are heroes...that's odd isn't it?”

“Men enjoy to make war?” the King wanted to know.

“NO!” Cavor climbed hurriedly to his feet, “No, they detest it!”

“Then if they make war,” the King said slowly, “they must be defective.”

“Well...” Cavor didn't know how to answer this question and he'd not liked the way the King had said, _defective_ , it was starting to occur to him that the moon-creatures weren't all sweetness and light. “We're not perfect, mankind is still evolving...there are men of peace.”

“My concern is with the men of violence,” replied the King, “the men who...kill!”

0=0=0=0

“Pacifist swine,” Kennedy muttered darkly at Cavor, “it's people like you who start wars!”

Glancing at her watch Kennedy saw that she'd still have to wait a few more minutes before she could do anything to save humanity from the moon-creature threat.

0=0=0=0

“Soon others will be coming from Earth,” the King said slowly, “Our galleries will be strewn with dead.”

“There needn't be any others,” Cavor shouted, “I'm the only one who knows the secret of the gravitic motors...”

“Yes you and your secret will remain with us and help us devise a means of striking at Earth before they destroy us,” the King informed Cavor

0=0=0=0

“Time to move,” Kennedy told herself.

Jumping from her hiding place she cut down half-a-dozen moon-creatures as she floated over their decapitated heads. Within seconds of her appearance the audience chamber was reduced to pandemonium. Moon-creatures rushed about in disorder as they tried to interpose their bodies between Kennedy's bloody blade and the Moon-King. Hacking left and right, she cut a bloody path to where Cavor cowered on the floor near a crystal outcrop.

“Come with me or I'll kill you,” Kennedy told the frightened scientist, she'd never had any problem about killing humans; unlike Buffy who'd whine about it for hours before she killed them anyway.

Grabbing hold of Cavor's arm, Kennedy hauled him to his feet. Turning to drag him towards her escape route she was met by a horde of moon-creatures blocking her way. Once again her sword rose and fell, cutting down the creatures and sending their limbs in slow motion, bloody, cartwheels across the chamber. Falling back the moon-creatures revealed a group of creatures trying to set up one of their energy guns. Moving as quickly as she dared, Kennedy hurled her sword at the blue glowy thing, before using her hands and feet to smash her way to the energy gun and its crew. Quickly slaughtering the crew, Kennedy picked up the gun; it was overly big and clumsy, but her slayer instincts told her how to fire it. As her sword bounced harmlessly off the blue globe, she triggered the weapon and cut down tens of moon-creatures. They fell in untidy, smouldering heaps before her as she played the flashing green beam across their packed ranks.

“Noooooooo!” Cavor wailed as he tried to wrestle the weapon from Kennedy's grip.

As they struggled for possession of the gun, Kennedy fired wildly in all directions. Beams cut down moon-creatures in uncounted numbers or blasted great lumps of moon rock from the cavern walls. Eventually pushing Cavor to the floor where he sobbed uncontrollably, Kennedy found herself free of attacking creatures for just a moment. The King and his glowy blue ball had vanished as had the 'brain-bugs'. What she was left with was what looked like thousands of moon-creatures who were massing to attack only fifty yards away, she also saw other creatures trying to set up more guns. Firing a long burst of energy into the mass before her, she turned and once again grabbed hold of Cavor and made for her escape route.

“If you want to live,” Kennedy told him in a voice that contained no mercy, “don't try and fight me or I'll kill you where you stand!”

Dragging Cavor along with one hand and firing a few bursts with her gun with the other, Kennedy headed for safety as the moon-creatures rushed after her in wild pursuit. Once they'd made the crystals at the edge of the stair way, Kennedy discarded the gun, it was too big and it would never fit down the tunnels she intended using for her escape. Free of the cumbersome weapon she was able to grip Cavor in an unbreakable hold and drag him through the narrow tunnels back to the workshop.

As they moved, Kennedy pulled them through the tunnel much like a diver making his way through a narrow opening in a wreck, she could hear the urgent chirruping of the moon-creatures behind her. Not far now, she told herself as the chirruping got closer. By now, Cavor had been reduced to a blubbering wreck after watching the destruction of the moon-creatures and his own forceful rescue. Coming out from between two huge crystals, Kennedy saw the sphere standing in the middle of the work shop. It looked very much as she'd first seen it and she hoped that Willow had got it repaired by now.

“Come on you,” Kennedy almost lifted Cavor off his feet as she dragged him towards the sphere, “WILLOW!?”

“Hi, sweetie!” Willow's head appeared in the hatch of the airlock.

“Are we ready to go?” Kennedy asked as she reached the foot of the ladder leading to the interior of the craft, she glanced over her shoulder to see the first of the moon-creature horde appear in the chamber behind her.

“All ready,” Willow gave the moon-creatures a worried glance, “just waiting for you, honey.”

“Okay, here I come!” Kennedy jumped intending for herself and Cavor to land on the little platform in front of the airlock.

However, as she jumped, Cavor managed to twist himself from her grip. As Kennedy floated upwards he floated towards the floor.

“DAMN IT!” Kennedy shouted; she looked from where Cavor lay to where the moon-creatures were advancing towards her, “Too close!”

Leaving Cavor to the mercy of the moon-creatures, Kennedy crawled inside the sphere and closed the airlock behind her. Clambering into the ship she scrambled up into the control capsule and started to strap herself down onto the couch next to Willow.

“One minor point about our escape plan, Will,” Kennedy said as she buckled up the last of the safety straps.

“What's that?” Willow was too busy switching switches and balancing power levels to look at her.

“It sorta occurred to me that we're underground,” Kennedy said without any hint of panic, “How do we fly out of here?”

“Already thought of that,” Willow replied with a smug grin, “we fly down that big tunnel,” she nodded with her head to the tunnel in question, “then we go up through one of those light shafts and smash through the lens at the top.”

“Cool!” Kennedy sounded impressed, “With luck all the air will rush out of the place and kill everything.”

“Cavor?” Willow glanced over at Kennedy.

“We're better off with him dead...” Kennedy replied.

“Okay, if you say so” Willow replied pragmatically as she rested back on her couch and took the flight controls in her hands, “hold on tight!”

0=0=0=0

**Slayer Central, about two weeks later.**

“Wow!” Buffy said quietly as Willow came to the end of her story; they were all sitting in the garden of Giles' cliff top house. “So what happened next?”

“Somehow I managed to fly us home,” Willow explained, “unfortunately I crashed the sphere off the coast of umBonga in East Africa. It's lost at the bottom of the sea now.”

“Pity,” Buffy sighed sadly, “having our own anti-gravity space ship would have been totally cool.”

“This Cavor fellow,” Giles spoke up as he sipped his tea, “what about him?”

“Back on the moon, I suppose,” Willow shrugged before picking up her own teacup, “whatever happened to the moon-creatures happened to him...”

“So we can't be sure if he's dead or alive?” Giles asked.

“Nope,” Willow shook her head.

“And you're sure that these moon-thingies were evil?” Buffy wanted to know.

“As sure as I can be,” Willow agreed.

“Darn,” Buffy remained silent for a moment before speaking again, “so...we have a probably hostile race of moon-creatures who may, or may not have all been destroyed. Working to attack Earth with the help of this Cavor guy,” Buffy looked directly at Willow, “do you think he could build more of the sphere things?”

“Probably,” Willow replied miserably, “it depends if he has access to the right raw materials.”

“Could you build one, Willow?” Giles wanted to know.

“Maybe, if I worked at it for fifteen or twenty years,” Willow replied with a frown.

“So we'll just have to wait and see what happens,” Buffy replied slowly.

“There might be something I could do magically, but...” Willow's voice died away as they all looked upwards at the moon as it hung in the night sky.

_Hope you got your things together.  
Hope you are quite prepared to die.   
Looks like we're in for nasty weather.   
One eye is taken for an eye.   
Don't go around tonight,   
Well, it's bound to take your life,   
There's a bad moon on the rise._

THE END.


End file.
